■iiiiiimmiii  ii  inn i  n  us 


KONZTANTINOZ  0  MEfAZ 


CONSTANTINE    THE    GREAT 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


BY 

EDWIN   A.  GROSVENOR 

PROFESSOR    OF    EUROPEAN    HISTORY    AT    AMHERST    COLLEGE 

FORMERLY    PROFESSOR    OK    HISTORY    AT    ROBERT    COLLEGE,    CONSTANTINOPLE  I 
MEMBER   OF   THE    HELLENIC    PHILOLOGIC    SYLLOGOS    OF    CONSTANTI- 
NOPLE;   OF   THE    SOCIETY    OF   MEDIAEVAL   RESEARCHES, 
CONSTANTINOPLE;     OF    THE    SYLLOGOS    PARNASSOS 
OF    ATHENS.  GREECE 


aBSttf)  an  Entrotmrtton  bg 
GENERAL    LEW.    WALLACE 


IN    TWO    VOLUMES 

Vol.  I 

ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS 

1895 


Copyright,  1895 
By  Roberts  Brothers 


All  rights  reserved 


S3iutorrsitc  Press 

Iohn  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


THE  GETTY  CENTER 
LIBRARY 


MY    WIFE 


PREFACE 


0  the  Western  eye  there  seems  to  be 
always  hanging  before  Constantino- 
ple a  veil  of  mystery  and  separation. 
Its    remoteness   from    Great    Britain 
and  America  in  territorial    distance 
and  antiquity  of  history  is  intensified 
manyfold    by   that   other    remoteness, 
caused  by  variety  of  races,  languages,  customs,  and  creeds. 
It  is  difficult  for  the  foreign  resident  to  know  it  well,  and 
for  the  passing  stranger  or  tourist,  utterly  impossible. 

It  has  been  my  precious  privilege  to  enjoy  unusual 
opportunities  for  learning  the  story  and  entering  into  the 
life  of  the  kaleidoscopic  city.  The  preparation  of  this  book 
has  been  a  labor  of  delight,  but  it  has  occupied  many 
years.  No  man  could  have  a  more  fascinating  theme. 
Even  as  Constantinople  has  a  charm  for  all  classes  of 
mankind,  I  have  sought  to  make  this  not  a  volume  for 
any  one  narrow  range  of  readers,  but  a  book  for  all. 

As  now  the  bark,  so  long  in  building,  is  launched  upon 
the  great  sea,  I  recall  the  many  who  have  aided  in  its 
construction.  The  mere  enumeration  of  their  names 
would  resemble  a  cosmopolitan  romance ;  for  I  am  proud 
to  reckon  among  my  friends  representatives  of  every  na- 


vi  n  PREFACE 

tionality  and  religion  and  social  rank  in  Constantinople. 
To  each  one  of  them  all  I  stretch  my  hand  across  the 
ocean  and  the  continent  in  a  warm  grasp  of  friendship 
and  gratitude.  One  has  told  me  a  legend ;  one  identified 
a  rock ;  one  pointed  out  an  inscription ;  one  given  a  me- 
dallion or  picture ;  and  each  has  contributed  his  stone,  or 
his  many  stones,  to  the  general  mosaic  of  information. 
Each  face  stands  out  distinct  in  my  grateful  memory. 

The  contracted  space  of  a  preface  allows  scant  room  ; 
but  special  acknowledgments  must  be  tendered  to  their 
Excellencies,  Sir  Henry  Austin  Layard  and  Sir  Wil- 
liam Arthur  White,  former  British  Ambassadors  to  the 
Sublime  Porte ;  William  Henry  Wrench,  Esquire,  British 
Consul  at  Constantinople,  and  the  Reverend  Canon  Curtis. 
Rector  of  the  British  Memorial  Church;  His  Eminence 
the  Very  Reverend  Philotheos  Bryennios,  Metropolitan  of 
Nicomedia ;  His  Excellency  Aristarchis  Bey,  Senator  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire  and  Grand  Logothete  of  the  Greek 
Nation;  Mr  Manuel  I.  Gedeon,  the  brilliant  medievalist ; 
the  members  of  the  Hellenic  Philologic  Syllogos ;  His 
Excellency  Hamcli  Bey,  Director  of  the  Imperial  Ottoman 
Museum  of  Antiquities ;  President  George  Washburn,  D.  D., 
the  Reverend  Professor  Hagopos  Djedjizian,  and  Professor 
Louisos  Eliou,  of  Robert  College  ;  the  Reverend  George  A. 
Ford,  I).  D.,  Arabic  scholar,  and  missionary  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Board  at  Sidon,  Syria ;  the  Reverend  Henry  0. 
Jhvight,  Turkish  scholar,  and  missionary  of  the  American 
Board  at  Constantinople  ;  the  Honorable  Charles  K.  Tuck- 
erman,  former  American  Minister  to  Greece ;  the  Honor- 


PREFACE  ix 

able  Eugene  Schuyler,  former  American  Minister  to  Rou- 
mania,  Servia,  and  Greece ;  the  Honorable  Zachariah  T. 
Sweeney,  former  American  Consul-General  at  Constanti- 
nople ;  Alexander  A.  Gargiulo,  Esquire,  First  Dragoman, 
polyglot  linguist,  and  adviser  of  the  American  Legation 
at  Constantinople ;  the  Honorable  Samuel  Sullivan  Cox, 
the  Honorable  Oscar  S.  Straus  of  New  York  City,  and 
the  Honorable  Solomon  Hirsch  of  Portland,  Oregon,  former 
American  Ministers  to  the  Sublime  Porte. 

This  is  no  mere  recapitulation  of  glittering  names.  To 
each  of  these  distinguished  gentlemen  I  am  personally  in- 
debted. I  realize  sadly  that  the  dull,  cold  ear  of  death 
renders  some  of  them  insensible  to  any  word  of  thanks. 

Yet  there  are  two  to  whom  I  owe  more  than  to  all  the 

rest :  Alexander  G.  Paspatis,  graduate  and  doctor  of  laws 

of  my  own  Alma  Mater,  my  teacher  and  early  friend,  the 

most  modest,  the  most  patient,  the  most  learned  of  all 

those  who    have    striven  to  probe  the   mysteries  of   the 

classic  and   the    Byzantine   city;    General  Lew.  Wallace, 

companionship  with  whom  through  years  of   study  and 

research,  and  whose  always  constant  friendship  have  been 

and  are  an  inspiration. 

EDWIN  A.    GROSVENOR. 

Amherst,  Massachusetts,  IT.  S.  A., 
October  the  twenty-third,  1895. 


INTRODUCTION 


HE  reading  world,  both  of  Europe 
and  America,  lias  long  needed  a  his- 
tory of  Constantinople  which  will 
enable  one  wandering  through  the 
modernities  of  the  city  to  identify 
its  hills  and  sites,  and  at  least  meas- 
urably reconstruct  it.  So  only  can  it  be  redeemed,  not 
merely  from  unsentimental  guide-books,  but  more  particu- 
larly from  the  Agopes,  Leandros,  and  Dimitries,  and  the 
guild  of  couriers,  hungry,  insolent,  insistent,  and  marvel- 
lously ignorant,  whom  the  landlords  of  Pera  permit  to  lie 
around  their  halls  and  doors  in  lurk  for  unprotected 
travellers. 

Such  a  book  would  be  a  surprise  to  visitors  who,  having 
been  led  down  through  Galata,  and  across  the  beggar- 
haunted  bridge  over  the  Golden  Horn,  to  the  Hippodrome, 
the  Janissary  Museum,  the  Treasury,  and  Sancta  Sophia, 
are  solemnly  told  they  have  seen  all  there  is  worth  seeing. 
But  of  the  components  of  the  reading  world  within  the 
meaning  of  the  opening  reference,  no  class  would  be  so 
greath'  profited  by  such  a  history  as  students  of  the  East, 
who  know  that  under  the  superficies  of  Stamboul  lie  the 
remains  of  Byzantium,  Queen  of  the  Propontis,  for  whose 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

siren  splendors  the  Greeks  forgot  their  more  glorious 
Athens,  and  the  Latins,  in  the  following  of  Constantine, 
actually  abandoned  Rome,  leaving  it  a  mouldy  bone  to  be 
contended  for  by  the  hordes  first  from  the  North.  In  the 
light  of  that  volume,  an  inquirer  delighting  in  comparison 
will  be  astonished  to  find  that  the  present  Constantinople, 
overlying  Byzantium,  as  the  dead  often  overlie  each  other 
in  Turkish  cemeteries,  is  yet  clothed  with  attractions 
rivalled  only  by  Rome  and  Cairo.  It  were  hard  rendering 
the  philosophy  of  the  influence  of  history  in  the  enhance- 
ment of  interest  in  localities ;  nevertheless,  the  influence 
exists,  and  has  for  its  most  remarkable  feature  the  fact 
that  it  is  generally  derived  from  the  struggles  of  men  and 
nations,  illustrated  by  sufferings  and  extraordinary  tri- 
umphs, or  what  we  commonly  term  heroisms.  It  is  largely 
by  virtue  of  such  an  influence  that  we  have  the  three 
cities  probably  the  most  interesting  of  the  earth,  —  Rome, 
Constantinople,  and  Cairo.  This  remark  is  certainly  very 
broad,  and  exceptions  might  be  demanded  in  behalf  of 
Jerusalem,  and  Mecca,  and  farther  still,  according  to  the 
impulses  of  pious  veneration ;  but  the  interest  in  those 
places,  it  is  to  be  observed,  is  obviously  referable  to  sacred 
incidents  of  one  kind  or  another,  on  account  of  which 
they  are  above  the  comparison. 

Rome  has  first  place  in  the  mention ;  but  it  is  as  a  con- 
cession to  scholars  whose  reading  and  education  are  per- 
meated with  Latinity,  and  to  that  other  section  of  the 
world  yet  more  numerous, — tourists  who,  at  the  foot  of 
the  Capitol  hie  Hill,  or  in  the  moon-lit  area  of  the  mighty 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

murder-mill  of  Vespasian  and  Titus,  forget  that  there  is 
an  East  awaiting  them  with  attractions  in  endless  pro- 
gramme. None  the  less  there  are  delvers,  inscription-hunt- 
ers, and  savants  of  undoubted  judgment,  familiar  with  the 
regions  along  the  morning  shores  of  the  Mediterranean, 
who  boldly  declare  themselves  unconditional  partisans  of 
Constantinople.  And,  to  say  truth,  if  the  comparison, 
which  will  be  perfectly  possible  through  the  history  spoken 
of,  is  pursued  to  its  end  by  a  student  really  impartial,  he 
will  be  amazed  by  the  discovery  that  all  the  elements 
which  enter  into  his  veneration  for  the  old  Rome  belong 
not  less  distinctly  to  the  later  Rome,  —  antiquity,  history, 
ruins,  tragedies,  comedies,  and  all  manner  of  composite 
pictures  of  people,  —  in  a  word,  everything  in  the  least 
definitive  of  hero  and  harlequin. 

These  points  tend  to  equality  of  interest ;  so  if,  in  the 
consideration,  the  person  finds  himself  hesitant,  and  looks 
about  in  search  of  a  transcendent  advantage  on  which  to 
rest  a  judgment,  one  will  presently  appear. 

To  the  Western-born,  Asia  is  more  than  a  continent :  it 
is  a  world  remote  and  isolated,  moving,  it  is  difficult  to 
say  whether  forward  or  back,  in  a  vast  and  shadowy  an- 
tiquity, and  possessed  by  tribes  and  races  so  dissimilar  in 
habits,  socialities,  conditions,  and  genius,  that  familiarity 
with  them  is  as  impossible  to-day  as  it  was  a  thousand 
years  ago.  The  intercourse  between  European  national- 
ities has  brought  about  a  brotherhood  in  which  diversi- 
ties have  been  happily  reduced  to  trifles,  if  not  refined 
away.     Unfortunately  failure  or  marginal  success  must  be 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

written  under  even"  attempt  at  establishing  so  much  as 
comity  among  Asiatics  ;  their  boundaries  have  been  ever- 
lastingly changing,  and  when  changed  instantly  sown 
with  swords.  The  result  has  been  a  taint  of  uncertainty 
running  through  our  best  information,  leaving  us  to  im- 
pressions rather  than  knowledge,  from  which  we  have 
evolved  what  is  magniloquently  called  the  Orient,  —  a. 
realm  girt  round  about  with  filmy  romance  and  extrava- 
ganzas distilled  from  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  imaginary, 
yet  gorgeous  as  auroras  ;  a  realm  in  the  parts  next  us 
all  horizon,  in  the  parts  stretching  thitherward  all  depth. 
And  then,  as  a  capping  to  the  description,  it  also  happens 
that  on  the  edge  of  this  Orient  nearest  us  lie  Constantino- 
ple and  Cairo,  their  mosques  and  bazars  but  so  many 
stereopticon  lenses  permitting  glimpses  of  Egypt,  Persia, 
and  India,  and  all  there  is  and  was  of  them,  curtaining 
the  further  mysteries  of  China  the  Separated  and  Japan 
the  Grotesque.  With  such  an  advantage  in  their  favor, 
it  would  seem  that  Rome  ought  to  be  proudly  content  to 
wait  on  her  rivals  candle  in  hand. 

The  foregoing,  it  is  now  proper  to  say,  is  prefatory. 
Its  motive  is  the  announcement  of  a  History  of  Constanti- 
nople which  will  not  merely  serve  every  want  of  the  tour- 
ist, student,  and  general  reader,  but  be  indispensable  to 
every  library  for  referential  purposes.  The  author  is 
Edwin  A.  Grosvenor,  Professor  of  European  History  at 
Amherst  College.  And  lest  it  be  summarily  concluded 
that  his  work  is  a  compilation  merely,  composed  at  ele- 
gant  leisure,    in    a    study    well    lighted    and    bountifully 


INTR  OD  UCTION  XV 

supplied  with  authorities  in  blue  and  gold,  we  beg  to 
interpose  some  particulars. 

As  far  back  as  1831,  Amherst  College  graduated  a 
young  Sciote,  named  Alexander  G.  Paspatis,  who  became 
a  man  of  vast  erudition.  His  whole  life  succeeding  grad- 
uation was  given  to  Constantinople  and  Greece.  He  was, 
in  fact,  the  chief  Greek  archeologist  of  his  time,  and  knew 
more  of  Byzantium  than  any  other  scholar,  however 
devoted  to  that  conglomeration  of  antiquities.  Professor 
Grosvenor  accepted  a  chair  in  Robert  College  on  the  west- 
ern bank  of  the  Bosphorus,  six  miles  above  Stamboul,  and 
while  in  that  position  made  the  acquaintance  of  Dr  Pas- 
patis. Sons  of  the  same  Alma  Mater,  it  was  natural  that 
they  should  be  drawn  together.  Ere  long  they  became 
intimates ;  and  when  Professor  Grosvenor  developed  a 
facility  for  the  acquirement  of  languages  —  Paspatis  spoke 
fifteen  —  and  a  taste  for  the  antique  in  and  about  the  old 
capital  of  the  Komnenoi,  Paspatis  took  him  to  his  heart 
and  became  his  master  and  guide. 

The  days  they  went  roaming  through  the  lost  quarters 
and  over  the  diminished  hills,  digging  into  tumuli  in 
search  of  data  for  this  and  that,  deciphering  inscriptions, 
and  fixing  the  relations  of  points,  were  to  the  younger 
professor  what  the  illuminated  letters  are  at  the  beginning 
of  chapters    in   the  Koran.1     Paspatis    suggested   to    his 

1  The  writer  had  afterwards  the  benefit  of  the  experience  thus  acquired  ; 
only  in  his  wanderings  and  researches  through  the  ohscure  quarters  of  the 
city,  Professor  Grosvenor  was  his  mentor  and  guide.  Each  of  the  prospec- 
tors had  then  a  book  in  mind. 


xvi  INTB  OD  UCTION 

friend  the  writing  of  a  book,  and  from  that  moment  the 
latter  betook  himself  to  preparation,  greatly  assisted  by 
a  thorough  mastery  of  many  languages,  modern  and  clas- 
sic. He  collected  authorities,  and  with  the  learned  Doc- 
tor personally  tested  them  on  the  ground.  Old  churches 
were  thus  resurrected,  and  palaces  restored.  Greek  sites 
and  remains  were  rescued  from  confusion  with  those  of  the 
Turks.  In  short,  the  reader,  whether  student  or  traveller, 
will  thank  Professor  Grosvenor  for  his  book ;  for  besides 
its  clear  reading,  it  is  profusely  enriched  by  pictures  and 
photographs  never  before  published. 

LEW.   WALLACE. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Preface vii 

Introduction xi 

List  of  Illustrations xix 

I     Constantinople 3 

II     History  of  Constantinople IS 

The  First  Epoch 21 

The  Second  Epoch 28 

The  Third  Epoch 48 

III     The  Rise  of  the  Ottomans 59 

IY     His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Present  Sultan     ...  72 

Y     The  Golden  Horn 76 

Villages  on  the  Golden  Horn       81 

Galata 93 

Pera 103 

VI     The  Bosphorus 119 

The  European  Shore  of  the  Bosphorus 128 

The  Cyanean  Islands 199 

The  Asiatic  Shore  of  the  Bosphorus 205 

Scutari,  Chrysopolis 241 

Kadikeui,  Chalkedon 255 

The  Princes'  Islands 264 

VII     Ancient  Constantinople 288 

The  Regions 290 

The  Baths 296 

The  Forums 297 


xviii  CONTENTS 

Page 

The  Palaces 304 

The  Churches 311 

The  Hippodrome 319 

YIII     Still  Existing  Antiquities 354 

The  Aqueduct  of  Valens 356 

The  Baths  of  Constantine 359 

The  Cisterns 3G0 

The  Columns 371 

The  Palaces 388 

The  Prison  of  Anemas 395 

The  Tower  of  Galata 400 

Stray  TVaifs  of  Antiquity 403 

Byzantine  Churches  Converted  into  Mosques      .     .     .  405 
Kutchouk  Aya  Sophia,  the  Church  of  Saints  Sergius 

and  Bacchus 409 


LIST  °r  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 

Constantine  the  Great  .  - Frontispiece 

Map  of  Stauiboul facing  14 

Byzas 22 

Septimius  Severus 25 

Saint  Helena,  Mother  of  Constantine  the  Great 29 

The  Emperor  Julian 33 

The  Empress  Saint  Puleheria 34 

Justinian  the  Great 34 

The  Empress  Theodora,  Wife  of  Justinian 35 

Costume  of  Emperor  and  Patriarch  prior  to  1053 37 

Michael  VIII  Palaiologos  and  his  Wife  Theodora 39 

Constantine  XIII,  the  Last  Byzantine  Emperor 41 

Mohammed  II  the  Conqueror 48 

Plan  of  Constantinople  in  1481  at  the  Death  of  the  Conqueror   .  51 

Sultan  Soulei'man  I  the  Magnificent 53 

Tomb  of  Soulei'man  I  the  Magnificent 54 

Mahmoud  II  the  Great 55 

Catafalque  of  Roxelana 57 

Ghazi  Sultan  Osman 60 

Gallipoli 64 

Tombs  of  Sultans  Orkhan  and  Osman  at  Brousa 65 

Yeshil  Djami,  the  Green  Mosque  of  Mohammed  I  at  Brousa       .  67 

Horse-Tail  of  Pasha 70 


xx  LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Harbor  of  the  Golden  Horn 78 

The  Galata  Bridge 79 

Eyoub 83 

A  View  of  the  Golden  Horn  from  Eyoub 84 

The  Sweet  Waters  of  Europe 87 

Constantinople  from  Galata  in  1635 facing  94 

The  Yuksek  Kalderim 99 

The  Whirling  Dervishes Ill 

Russian  Church  of  Saint  Nicolas 115 

Map  of  Constantinople,  showing  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Princes' 

Islands 129 

Palace  of  Dolma  Baghtcheh 135 

The  Crystal  Staircase  in  the  Palace  of  Dolma  Baghtcheh  .     .     .  137 

A  Gate  of  the  Palace  of  Dolma  Baghtcheh 139 

The  Bath-room   in  the  Palace   of  Dolma  Baghtcheh  in   carved 

Alabaster 140 

Throne-room  in  the  Palace  of  Dolma  Baghtcheh 141 

Dining-hall  of  Yildiz  Kiosk 145 

Yildiz  Kiosk  and  Reception  to  the  German  Emperor  in  1889     .  147 

Kiosk  in  the  Palace  Gardens 149 

Sultan  Selim  III  going  to  Mosque  in  1789 151 

The  Sultan  going  to  Mosque 153 

Khaireddin  Pasha 154 

Passage  in  the  Palace  of  Tcheragan 157 

View  Southward  from  Ortakeui 159 

Village  of  Bebek 104 

The  Tower  of  Blood 169 

The  Western  Tower 170 

Inner  View  of  the  Fortress 171 

Robert  College  in  1871 173 

Steamer  Landing  at  Roumeli  Hissar 175 

Patriarch  Joachim  III 177 

British  Embassy  at  Therapia 183 

Plane-tree  of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon 185 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxi 

Page 

The  Russian  Embassy  at  Buyoukdereh 187 

Entrance  to  the  Black  Sea 191 

Bay  of  Buyouk  Liman 194 

The  Hieron 208 

Castle  of  Anadoli  Hissar 223 

The  Sweet  Waters  of  Asia 225 

The  Fountain  of  Gueuk  Sou 226 

The  Kiosk  at  Gueuk  Sou 227 

View  of  Roumeli  Hissar  from  Candili 229 

Abd-ul  Hamid  I        234 

The  Palace  of  Beylerbey 235 

A  Hall  in  the  Palace  of  Beylerbey 237 

Mourad  IV 238 

The  Maiden's  Tower 251 

British  Cemetery  at  Scutari   and  Hospital  of  Florence  Night- 
ingale    254 

Phanar  Bournou 261 

The  Princes'  Islands 265 

John  VIII  Palaiologos 275 

Church  of  the  Empress  Maria 277 

The  Empress  Zoe 284 

"  Constantine  the  Great  and  his  Mother  Saint  Helena,  holy, 

equal  to  the  Apostles  " 298 

Chart  of  the  Eastern  Section  of  Mediaeval  Constantinople      .     .  302 

Basil  II  Bulgaroktonos 314 

Holy  Fountain  of  the  Blachernai 318 

The  Three  Existing  Monuments  of  the  Hippodrome       ....  321 

Plan  of  the  Hippodrome 327 

The  Game  of  Djerid 351 

Aqueduct  of  Valens 357 

Aqueduct  of  Valens 358 

Bin  Bir  Derek 366 

The  Royal  Cistern  Yeri  Batan  Serai 371 

Column  of  Constantine  the  Great 375 


xxii  LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
The  Western  Side  of  the  Pedestal,  showing  the  Homage  of  the 

Vanquished  Goths 379 

The  Serpent  of  Delphi 381 

The  Column  of  Theodosius,  and  a  View  from  the  Seraglio       .     .  387 

Palace  of  Justinian       389 

Palace  of  the  Hebdomon 391 

Interior  of  the  Palace  of  the  Hebdomon        393 

Prisons  and  Castle  of  Anemas 396 

First  Chamber  in  Prison  of  Anemas 397 

Tower  of  Galata 401 

Columns  and  Gallery  of  Kutchouk  Aya  Sophia 412 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


the  clash  of  creeds 


FAMOUS  orator  in  a  panegyric  upon 
his  native  country  utters  its  name, 
and  then  exclaims  with  emotion, 
"  There  is  magic  in  the  sound  !  "  In 
the  word  "  Constantinople "  there  is 
the  blended  magic  of  mythologic  ro- 
mance, history,  and  poetry.  It  is  the 
synonym  of  the  fusion  of  races  and 
More  than  any  other  capital  of  man- 
kind it  is  cosmopolitan  in  its  present  and  its  past.  From 
the  natural  advantages  of  its  site  it  is  the  queen  city  of 
the  earth,  seated  upon  a  throne. 

After  the  treaty  of  Tilsit,  Napoleon  bade  his  secre- 
tary, M.  de  Meneval,  bring  him  the  largest  possible 
map  of  Europe.  In  anxious  and  protracted  interviews 
the  Emperor  Alexander  had  insisted  upon  the  abso- 
lute necessity  to  Russia  of  the  possession  of  Constan- 
tinople. There  was  no  price  so  great,  no  condition  so 
hard,  that  it  would  not  have  been  gratefully  accorded 
by  the  Russian  czar  for  the  city's  acquisition.  Napo- 
leon gazed  in  silence  earnestly  and  long  at  the  map 
wherein  that  continent  was  outlined,  of  which  he.   then 


4  CONSTANTINOPLE 

at  the  zenith  of  his  power,  was  the  autocratic  arbiter. 
At  last  he  exclaimed  with  earnestness,  "  Constanti- 
nople !  Constantinople  !  Never !  it  is  the  empire  of  the 
world  !  " 

Constantinople  embraces  the  entire  group  of  cities  and 
villages  on  and  immediately  adjacent  to  the  Thracian 
Bosphorus.  Its  heart  or  centre  is  the  mediaeval  town 
between  the  Marmora  and  the  Golden  Horn.  But  a  com- 
mon municipal  government  includes  as  well  all  the  dis- 
tricts on  the  farther  side  of  the  Golden  Horn,  all  the  long, 
wide  fringe  of  dwellings  on  the  European  and  Asiatic 
shores  of  the  Bosphorus  from  the  Marmora  to  the  Black 
Sea,  and  also  a  strip  on  the  northern  shore  of  the  Mar- 
mora and  the  tiny  archipelago  of  the  Princes'  Islands. 
Though  stretching  so  far  in  each  direction,  the  entire 
land  area  comprised  is  comparatively  small.  The  three 
sheets  of  water, — the  harbor,  the  strait,  and  the  sea, — 
on  which  it  lies,  occupy  the  larger  part  of  the  superfi- 
cial extent,  and  afford  spacious  thoroughfares  for  inter- 
communication. 

The  quarters  along  these  varied  and  winding  shores 
combine  in  the  perfection  of  ideal  terrestrial  beauty. 
As  presented  from  the  Marmora  in  early  morning  when 
the  rising  sun  paints  the  domes  and  minarets  of  the 
capital,  or  at  early  evening  when  every  wave  and  every 
roof  seems  almost  tremulous  in  a  flood  of  sunset  glory, 
or  beheld  at  any  time  from  the  hills  of  the  Bosphorus,  — 
itself  a  changing  lake  of  infinite  variety,  —  it  embodies  a 
panorama  such  as  one  who  has  never  beheld  it  cannot 
conceive,  and  such  as  those  who  have  seen  it  oftenest  find 
impossible  to  adequately  describe.  Moreover,  all  this  vis- 
ion of  scenic  loveliness  is  pervaded  and  enhanced  by  its 
halo  of  romantic  and  historic  memories,  which  transform 


CONSTANTINOPLE  5 

every  rock  and   cliff,  and   touch  every  inlet  and  ravine 
and   inch    of    ground  till    the  most  sluggish  and  phleg- 
matic   gazer    vibrates    with    the     thrill    of    ever-present, 
associations.1 

It  is  my  ambition  in  these  pages  to  describe  the  won- 
derful city.  Nor  do  I  conceive  how  one  can  under- 
take such  a  task  without  something  of  that  enthusi- 
asm which  the  very  name  "  Constantinople  "  instinctively 
excites. 

Three  main  routes  and  only  three  conduct  one  thither 
from  Western  Europe.  The  most  direct,  monotonous, 
and  least  interesting  of  all  is  by  the  railway  from 
Vienna  which  follows  the  Maritza,  the  ancient  Hebrus, 
and  traverses  the  great  Thracian  plain.  It  crosses  Bul- 
garia, that  principality  of  an  ancient  people,  now  ani- 
mated with  the  high  ambitions  and  the  noble  activity  of 
youth.  It  passes  through  those  level  tracts  where  in 
mythologic  clays  Bacchus,  with  the  help  of  vine-branches 
and  of  the  immortal  gods,  blinded  and  drove  to  madness 
the  King  Lycurgus ;  where  Orpheus,  faithful  to  his  forever 
lost  Euryclice,  was  torn  in  pieces  by  the  Thracian  women, 
who  were  frenzied  at  his  indifference  to  their  charms. 
It  winds  through  shapeless  mouldering  mounds,  the  pros- 
trate remnants  of  the  walls  reared  from  the  Euxine 
to  the  Marmora  by  the  Emperor  Arcadius ;  skirts  for 
a  score  of  miles  the  flat  shores  of  the  Marmora ;  and 
creeps  into  the  city  humbly  at  its  southwest  corner, 
affording  hardly  a  glimpse  of  the  metropolis  one  has 
come  to  see. 

The  second  route  descends  southward  from  some  one  of 

1  This  entire  territory  is  administered  in  the  ten  Circles,  or  Municipalities, 
of  Sultan  Bayezid,  Sultan  Mohammed,  Djerrah  Pasha,  Beshicktash,  Pera, 
Yenikeui,  Buyoukdereh,  Anadoli   Ilissar.  Scutari,  and  Kadikeui. 


G  CONSTANTINOPLE 

the  rapidly  growing  harbor-cities  on  the  Black  Sea.  In- 
visible in  the  distance  lie  the  endless  sandy  coasts  of  the 
Colossus  of  the  North.  The  steamer  cuts  its  track  in 
waters  sometimes  calm  as  those  of  a  summer  lake,  some- 
times majestic  and  resistless  as  ocean  waves.  Between 
the  Cyanean  Rocks  of  Jason  and  the  Argonauts  it  pene- 
trates the  Bosphorus.  Each  time  the  helm  is  shifted, 
a  new  beauty  is  revealed.  As  the  ship  advances,  the 
wonder  of  the  landscape  grows.  The  converging,  pal- 
ace-studded shores  seem  made  to  border  on  either  side 
a  mighty  aisle  till  the  voyage  is  ended  with  one  ethereal 
burst  of  splendor  in  the  vision  of  Seraglio  Point  and 
of  seven-hilled  Stamboul. 

The  third  route  far  transcends  the  other  two.  In  rich- 
ness of  association  there  is  not  its  equal  upon  earth.  From 
whatever  point  in  Europe  it  begins,  at  last  its  course 
leads  eastward  among  the  enchanted  Isles  of  Greece. 
Between  Tenedos,  of  which  Virgil  wrote,  and  Lemnos, 
on  which  Vulcan  fell,  it  enters  the  Dardanelles,  the 
ancient  Hellespont,  or  sea  of  the  maiden  Helle.  A 
ship's  length  distant  on  the  left  spreads  the  long,  low, 
yellow  strip  of  sand,  overtopped  by  hills,  the  Thracian 
Chersonese,  ruled  before  the  Persian  wars  by  the  tyrant 
Miltiades,  the  savior  of  Marathon,  "  Freedom's  best  and 
bravest  friend."  On  the  right  the  Sigasan  promontory 
guards  the  marshy  bed  of  the  Simo'is,  the  tumuli,  and 
the  plain  of  Troy,  and  beyond  soar  the  arrowy  peaks  of 
many-fountained  Ida.  Half  a  score  of  miles  to  the  south 
is  Alexandria  Troas,  within  whose  now  dismantled  Avails 
St.  Paul  caught  his  mysterious  vision  of  the  man  of 
Macedonia :  thence  he  sailed  to  the  spiritual  eman- 
cipation of  the  European  continent ;  and  from  the 
same    spot    thirteen    centuries    later  the  heir  of    Orkhan 


CONSTANTINOPLE  7 

departed  for  the  first  Ottoman  attack  against  the  Byzan- 
tine Empire. 

The  on-rushing  steamer  cleaves  the  waves  which 
Xerxes  spanned  with  his  bridge  of  boats,  and  into  which 
he  cast  his  impotent  iron  chain,  —  waves  which  threw 
the  lifeless  forms  of  Leander  and  Hero  upon  the  beach, 
and  across  which  Byron  swam.  At  Lapsaki,  the  Lamp- 
sacus  of  Themistocles,  the  channel  widens.  Then,  becom- 
ing wider  still,  it  leaves  southward  the  Granicus,  on 
whose  banks  Alexander  gained  his  first  Asiatic  victory, 
and  northward  the  iEgos  Potamos,  at  whose  mouth  the 
Athenians  in  the  Peloponnesian  War  received  their  final 
and  irretrievable  defeat.  The  broader  Marmora  no  less 
than  the  Hellespont  is  an  eternally  haunted  sea.  As 
the  ship  steams  on,  the  traveller  lives  anew  the  school- 
day  romances  of  his  youth  in  the  breezes  blowing  upon 
him  from  storied  shores.  Aristides,  Pausanias  and 
Phocion,  Mithridates  and  Antiochus,  Cicero,  Pompey, 
Csesar,  and  Pliny  have  ploughed  these  waters,  and  on 
the  adjacent  solid  land  commingled  their  exploits  and 
disasters. 

When  the  voyage  is  nearly  done,  from  the  prow  of  the 
advancing  ship  may  be  seen  the  rounded  hill  of  Gue- 
biseh,  on  whose  cypress-shaded  top  —  in  death  as  in  life 
an  exile  from  his  beloved  Carthage,  but  persecuted  no 
longer — Hannibal  sleeps.  A  little  farther  on,  and  all 
other  thoughts  give  way  to  one  overmastering  emotion. 
There,  in  its  setting  of  islands  and  of  Asiatic  and  Eu- 
ropean hills,  Constantinople  absorbs  the  horizon.  I  shall 
make  no  effort  to  describe  the  scene.  I  have  gazed  upon 
the  fairest  spectacles  of  earth,  and  I  have  beheld  nothing 
else  comparable  with  this.  Eastward,  northward,  west- 
ward it  stretches  :  — 


8  CONSTANTINOPLE 

"  The  City  of  the  Constantines, 
Tlie  vising  city  of  the  billow-side, 
The  City  of  the  Cross  —  great  ocean's  bride, 
Crowned  with  her  birth  she  sprung!     Long  ages  past. 

And  still  she  looked  in  glory  o'er  the  tide 
Which  at  her  feet  barbaric  riches  cast, 
Pour'd  by  the  burning  East,  all  joyously  and  fast." 

The  dome  of  Sancta  Sophia  is  41°  north  of  the  equa- 
tor, and  28°  59'  east  of  Greenwich.  It  is  remarkable 
that  so  many  cities  of  first  importance  are  situated  on  the 
same  great  parallel.  That  narrow  belt,  hardly  more  than 
ninety  miles  in  breadth,  which  encircles  the  globe  be- 
tween 40°  20'  and  41°  50'  in  north  latitude,  includes  Con- 
stantinople, Rome,  the  Eternal  City,  Madrid,  the  political 
and  literary  capital  of  Spain,  and,  on  this  side  the  ocean, 
the  two  metropoleis,  unrivalled  in  the  western  hemisphere, 
New  York  and  Chicago.  A  person  proceeding  directly 
east  from  the  Court  House  Square  in  Chicago  would 
ascend  the  slopes  of  the  Palatine  Hill  in  Rome.  One 
travelling  directly  east  from  New  York  City  Hall  for  a 
distance  of  five  thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty-two 
.miles  would  pass  through  the  southern  suburbs  of 
Constantinople. 

The  number  of  human  beings  inhabiting  the  city  has 
been  till  the  last  decade  a  theme  for  the  wildest  conjec- 
ture. Dr  Pococke,  usually  so  judicious  and  discreet,  a 
century  and  a  half  ago  estimated  the  population  as  con- 
sisting of  3,340,000  Mussulmans,  60,000  Christians,  and 
100,000  Jews;  or  3,600,000  altogether.  Count  Andre- 
ossy  half  a  century  later  supposed  there  were  633,000. 
So  there  was  the  slight  discrepancy  of  3,000,00(1  souls 
between  these  respective  figures.  The  official  census  or 
guess  of  the   government  in   1885  found  873,565.     The 


CONSTANTINOPLE  9 

houses  were  declared  with  equal  accuracy  in  1877  to 
number  62,262.  The  resident  population  to-day  can  be 
but  little  less  than  one  million.  Like  the  audience  that 
listened  to  St.  Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  they  are 
"  out  of  every  nation  under  heaven." 

To  say  that  there  are  450,000  Mussulmans,  225,000 
Greeks,  165,000  Armenians,  50,000  Jews,  and  60,000 
members  of  less  numerous  subject  or  foreign  nationali- 
ties is  to  give  only  an  approximate  and  faint  idea  of 
the  motley  host  who  sleep  each  night  in  the  capital  of 
the  Sultan.  The  endless  variety  of  facial  type,  of  per- 
sonal attire  and  of  individual  demeanor,  and  the  jar- 
gon of  languages  in  some  gesticulating  crowd  afford  more 
distinct  and  more  exact  details  than  any  table  of  sta- 
tistics, however  elaborate  and  dry.  In  the  polyglot 
multitude,  he  who  speaks  but  a  couple  of  languages  is 
considered  ignorant,  and  is  often  helpless.  The  common 
handbills  and  notices  are  usually  printed  in  four.  The 
sign  over  a  cobbler's  shop  may  be  painted  in  the  lan- 
guages of  six  different  nations,  and  the  cobbler  on  his 
stool  inside  may  in  his  daily  talk  violate  the  rules  of 
grammar  in  a  dozen  or  more.  Still,  the  resident  who 
is  possessed  of  four  languages  will  almost  always  be  com- 
fortable and  at  ease.  First  in  importance  is  his  own 
vernacular ;  then  French,  for  intercourse  with  the  high 
Ottoman  officials  and  for  general  society;  then  Turkish, 
for  dealing  with  the  humbler  classes ;  and  Greek,  as  an 
open  sesame  among  the  native  Christian  population. 
Howsoever  many  additional  languages  one  can  speak, 
—  Italian,  Russian,  English,  German,  Arabic,  Armenian, 
Persian,  or  a  dozen  besides,  —  they  are  not  superfluous, 
and  on  occasion  each  will  be  of  advantage  and  use. 

The  only  disappointing  thing  at  Constantinople  is  the 


JO  C  OX  ST  A  NTINOPL  E 

climate.  Only  rarely  does  it  correspond  to  the  city's 
natural  loveliness.  Constantly  it  contradicts  those  con- 
ceptions wherein  imagination  pictures  the  East:  — 

"  The  land  of  the  cedar  and  vine, 

Where  the  flowers  ever  blossom,  the  beams  ever  shine; 
Where  the  citron  and  olive  are  fairest  of  fruit, 
And  the  voice  of  the  nightingale  never  is  mute; 

Where  the  tints  of  the  earth  and  the  hues  of  the  sky, 

In  color  though  varied,  in  beauty  may  vie," 

is,  as  to  the  deliciousness  of  its  climate,  only  the  fond 
creation  of  a  poet's  brain.  Some  days  in  April  or  May 
or  June  seem  absolute  perfection,  and  leave  nothing 
for  full  satiety  to  dream  of  or  wish.  October  or  Novem- 
ber or  December  is  sometimes  beautiful,  and  scattered 
through  the  year  are  many  pleasant  days.  But,  taking 
the  twelve  months  through,  few  localities  possess  a  cli- 
mate more  capricious  and  unkind.  The  variations  in  tem- 
perature are  frequent,  sudden,  excessive,  and  dangerous. 
The  experience  of  one  year  forms  small  basis  for  calcu- 
lation of  the  next.  The  heat  of  summer  is  often  main- 
tained for  months  at  a  high  temperature  ;  meanwhile  no 
rain  moistens  the  baked  and  cracking  ground,  and  the 
night  is  hardly  less  parching  than  the  day.  Snow  some- 
times falls  in  winter,  but  the  ground  rarely  freezes,  be- 
coming instead  a  mass  of  adhesive  mud  which  is  rendered 
still  more  disagreeable  by  incessant  rains.  The  damp 
and  clammy  winter  never  invigorates  like  the  sharper 
season  of  New  England.  Topographical  position  between 
the  Black  Sea,  the  Marmora,  and  the  ^Egean  largely 
affects  the  climate.  The  swift  Bosphorus,  bounded  by 
sharply  descending  banks,  becomes  a  tunnel  for  shifting 
currents  of  air.     Old  habit  lingers,  and  the  American  resi- 


C  ONSTANTINOPLE  1 1 

dent  speaks  of  the  four  seasons ;  nevertheless  the  remark 
of  Turner  is  literally  true :  "  There  are  two  climates  at 
Constantinople,  that  of  the  north,  and  that  of  the  south 
wind." 

All  the  vicinity  of  Constantinople  is  subject  to  earth- 
quake. Hardly  a  year  passes  without  several  shocks. 
These  have  generally  been  slight  and  of  brief  duration. 
The  most  violent  in  the  present  century  occurred  July 
11,  1894,  and  destroyed  nearly  a  hundred  lives.  In 
ancient  times  they  were  often  long  continued  and 
frightfully    disastrous. 

Of  the  cities  which  compose  the  capital,  three  are 
of  special  prominence.  These  are  Stamboul,  Galata- 
Pera,  and  Scutari. 

The  first  is  by  far  the  largest,  most  populous,  inter- 
esting, and  important.  Its  name  is  always  pronounced 
Istamboul  by  the  Ottomans,  from  their  inability  to 
articulate  an  initial  6-  followed  by  a  consonant.  Stam- 
boul is  many  times  larger  than  classic  Byzantium,  the 
site  of  which  is  included  in  the  headland  at  its  north- 
east extremity.  It  comprehends  the  Nova  Roma,  or 
Constantinoupolis  of  Constantine,  and  an  additional  ter- 
ritory of  equal  extent.  It  exactly  corresponds  with 
thirteen  of  the  fourteen  Regions,  or  Climata,  which 
made  up  the  Constantinople  of  Theodosius  II  and  of 
the  subsequent  Byzantine  emperors. 

This  was  the  splendid  mediaeval  city  wherein  were 
grouped  almost  all  the  edifices  of  Byzantine  Church 
and  State,  and  where  the  sovereign,  his  court,  and 
people  pre-eminently  acted  their  respective  parts.  It  is 
the  arena  wherein,  more  than  in  all  other  places,  was 
wrought  out  the  succession  of  Byzantine  history.  Here 
the  Ottomans  enthroned  themselves  under  their  mighty 


12  CONSTANTINOPLE 

leader,  Mohammed  II.  Till  the  nineteenth  century, 
they  regarded  all  the  adjacent  quarters  as  but  suburbs 
or  inferior  dependencies  of  Stamboul.  In  the  following 
pages  we  shall  be  forced,  almost  against  our  will,  to 
seemingly  follow  their  example.  As  we  seek  to  trace 
the  worn  paths  of  the  past  in  quest  of  surviving  monu- 
ments, or  to  contemplate  in  its  fullest  phases  the  life 
of  the  present,  it  is  to  this  section  of  the  metropolis 
that  our  thought  and  our  eyes  will  be  constantly 
turning. 

Stamboul  is  a  triangular  peninsula  nearly  eleven 
miles  in  circuit.  On  its  northern  side  the  Golden 
Horn  curves  its  crescent  bay;  on  the  south  rolls  the 
Marmora ;  its  blunt  eastern  apex  is  beaten  by  the 
Bosphorus ;  on  the  west,  outside  the  towering  Theo- 
dosian  walls,  spread  graveyards  of  prodigious  extent ; 
still  farther  west,  villages,  unconnected  with  Constanti- 
nople, crown  the  verdant  highlands  whose  water-springs 
during  the  Middle  Ages  fed  the  fountains  and  cisterns 
of  the  city. 

The  seven  hills,  which  were  to  Constantine  and  the 
cohorts  the  admired  reminder  of  the  older  Rome,  may 
still  be  distinctly  traced.  Though  the  topography  has 
been  vastly  modified  since  330,  though  frightfully  de- 
vastating fires  have  caused  the  city  to  be  rebuilt  from 
its  foundations  on  an  average  of  once  every  fifty  years, 
—  that  is,  more  than  thirty  times  since  it  became  an 
imperial  capital,  —  though  the  valleys  have  been  par- 
tially filled,  and  the  crests,  never  more  than  three  hun- 
dred feet  in  height,  have  been  worn  away,  yet  the 
seven  proud  hills  are  there.  They  are  at  once  distinct 
elevations  and  great  ridges  which  blend  at  their  tops. 
It    is    not    everywhere    easy    to    distinguish    the    valleys 


CONSTANTINOPLE  13 

between  the  first,  second,  and  third  hills,  since  there 
man  has  most  modified  nature.  A  ravine,  forming 
the  half-dry  bed  of  the  river  Lycus,  intersects  Stamboul 
at  a  point  one-third  the  distance  from  the  Golden  Horn 
to  the  Marmora :  proceeding  gradually  parallel  to  the 
former,  it  vdivides  Stamboul  into  two  unequal  sections. 
In  the  northern  section,  which  is  an  irregular  rectangle, 
are  six  hills  or  long  ridges.  The  valleys  between  run 
roughly  parallel  to  each  other  and  perpendicular  to 
the  Golden  Horn.  The  southern  section,  triangular  in 
shape,  constitutes  the  seventh  eminence,  and  was  an- 
ciently called  Xerolophos,  or  Dry  Hill.  It  contains 
nearly  a  third  of  the  territory  of    Stamboul.1 

1  The  first  and  most  eastern  hill  is  occupied  by  the  Seraglio,  Sancta 
Sophia,  the  Mosque  of  Sultan  Achmet  I,  and  the  Atmeidan,  or  Hippodrome. 
The  first  valley,  directly  west  of  the  Seraglio,  contains  the  buildings 
of  the  Sublime  Porte,  the  Roumelian  Railway  Station,  and  the  Royal 
Cistern  (Yeri  Batan  Serai).  On  the  second  hill  are  the  Mosque  Nouri 
Osinanieh,  the  Cistern  of  the  Thousand  and  One  Columns  (Bin  Bir 
Derek),  the  Tomb  of  Mahmoud  II,  and  the  Column  of  Constantine.  In 
the  second  valley,  which  ascends  from  the  lower  bridge,  are  the  Mosque 
Yeni  Valideh  Djami,  the  Egyptian  Bazar,  the  American  Bible  House,  and 
the  Grand  Bazar,  which  also  occupies  the  slopes  of  the  second  and  third 
hills.  On  the  third  hill  are  the  Mosque  of  Souleiman  I  and  the  grounds 
and  buildings  of  the  War  Department,  with  the  lofty  Tower  of  the  Seraskier, 
occupying  the  site  of  Eski  Serai.  On  the  blended  crest  of  the  second  and 
third  hills  stands  the  Mosque  of  Bayezid  IT.  The  third  valley  extends 
entirely  across  the  city,  from  the  Golden  Horn  to  the  Marmora.  It  is 
spanned  by  the  Aqueduct  of  Valens,  and  contains  the  residence  of  the 
Sheik-ul-Islam,  the  ancient  Church  of  Saint  Theodore  of  Tyrone,  Shahzadeh 
Djami,  and  Laleli  Djami.  The  crest  of  the  fourth  hill  is  crowned  by  the 
Mosque  of  Mohammed  II,  standing  on  the  site  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Apostles.  On  the  same  hill  are  the  Column  of  Marcian  and  many  ancient 
churches  now  mosques.  On  the  fifth  hill  are  the  Mosque  of  Selim  I,  the 
ancient  Church  of  Pammakaristos,  and  the  Cisterns  of  Arcadius  and  Petrion. 
In  the  fifth  valley  are  Phanar  and  the  Orthodox,  or  Greek,  Patriarchate. 
The  sixth  hill  has  two  summits  ■  on  one  are  the  Cistern  of  Bonos,  Mihri- 
mah  Djami.  and  the  ancient  Church  of  Chora;  on  the  other,  the  ancient 
Palace  of  the  Hebdomon.     In  the  valley  of  the  Lycus,  which  separates  the 


REFERENCES    TO   MAP   OF   STAMBOUL 


1  The  Marble  Tower 

2  Golden  Gate 

3  Seven  Towers 

4  Armenian  Hospital 

5  Mir  Ailior  Djami 

6  Belgrade  Kapon 

7  Silivri  Kapou 

8  Grave  of  Ali  Pasha 

9  Khodja  Moustapha  Pasha  Djami 

10  Soulou  Monastir 

11  Church  of  Saint  George 

12  Sandjakdar  Mesdjid 

13  Yesa  Kapou  Mesdjid 

14  Daoud  Pasha  Djami 

15  Hasseki  Djami 

16  Column  of  Arcadius 

17  Mohammed  Djerrah  Pasha  Djami 

18  Daoud  Pasha  Kapon 

19  Mourad  Pasha  Djami 

20  Tchochour  Bostan 

21  Mevlevi  Khaueh  Kapou 

22  Top  Kapon 

23  The  Lye  us 

24  Mihriina  Djami 

25  Edirneh  Kapou 

26  Tchochour  Bostan 

27  Kachrieh  Djami 

2S    Palace  of  the  Hebdomon 

29  Egri  Kapou 

30  Prison  of  Anemas 

31  A'ivan  Serai  Kapou 

32  Phetihieh  Djami 

33  llirkai  Sherif  Djami 

34  Phanari  Yesa  Mesdjid 

35  Column  of  Marcian 

36  Mosque  of  Sultan  Mohammed  II 

37  Tchochour  Bostan 

38  (  istern  of  Arcadius 

39  Mosque  of  Sultan  Selim  I 

40  Greek  Patriarchate 

41  Petri  Kapou 

42  Yeni  Kapou 

43  Aya  Kapou 

44  Ginl  Djami 

45  Djoubali  Kapou 

46  Oun  Kapan 

47  Ze'irek  Djami 

48  Aqueduct  of  Valens 

49  Shahzadeh  Djami 

50  Yeni  Valideh  Djami 

51  Laleli  Djami 


53 
54 
55 

56 
57 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 


79 
80 
81 
82 
83 
84 
85 
86 
87 
88 
89 
90 
91 
92 
93 
94 
95 
96 
97 
98 
99 
100 
101 
102 


Boudroum  Djami 

Yeni  Kapou 

Armenian  Patriarchate 

Mosque  of  Sultan  Bayezid  II 

Tower  of  Seraskier 

Seraskierat 

Barracks 

Mosque  of  Sultan  Souleiman  I 

Upper  Bridge 

Military  Prison 

Odoun  Kapou 

Roustem  Pasha  Djami 

American  Bible  House 

Yeni  Valideh  Djami 

Balouk  Bazar 

Lower  Bridge 

Custom  House 

JIM.  Station 

Custom  House 

Greek  Hospitals 

Tower  of  Galata 

Kilidj  Ali  Pasha  Djami 

Mosque  of  Sultan  Mahmoud  II 

Xouri  ( )smanieli 

Mahmoud  Pasha  Djami 

Atik  Ali  Pasha  Djami 

Turbeh  of  Sultan  Mahmoud  II 

Column  of  Constantine 

Bin  Bir  Derek 

Yeri  Batan  Serai 

Sublime  Porte 

Atmeidan 

Mosque  of  Sultan  Achmet  I 

Mehmet  Sokolli  Pasha  Djami 

Kutchouk  Aya  Sophia 

Palace  of  Justinian 

Lighthouse 

Achor  Kapou 

Sancta  Sophia 

Medical  Seli<.nl  of  Giul  Kuaneh 

Bab-i-Humayoun 

Saint  Irene 

Planetree  of  the  Janissaries 

Ayasma  of  the  Savior 

Indjili  Kiosk 

Giul  Kbaneh  Kiosk 

Museum 

Column  of  Theodosins 

Hospital  and  Medical  School 

Mermer  Kiosk 

Top  Kapou 


Map  of 
V       <STAMBOUL- 

*!*      S^iSS??-  &        DUILDINGS^  IHOROUGHFARES. 


OF     MARMORA 


CONSTANTINOPLE  15 

Second  to  Stamboul  in  importance,  directly  opposite 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Golden  Horn,  are  the  inter- 
woven cities  of  Galata  and  Pera.  On  that  bald  plateau 
which  rises  between  the  valley  of  Khiat  Khaneh  and  the 
Bosphorus,  they  occupy  the  extreme  southern  point,  and 
thus  project  between  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Golden  Horn 
at  the  junction  of  the  two.  Galata  corresponds  in  the 
main  with  the  thirteenth  Region,  or  Clima,  of  Theodosius 
II.  Its  closely  packed  edifices  lean  against  each  other 
and  are  built  along  the  shore  and  up  the  terraced  sides 
of  a  sharply  ascending  hill.  Its  highest  elevation  is 
marked  by  its  enormous  Tower,  the  most  prominent 
object  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Bosphorus.  Rapidly 
expanding  and  aggressive  Pera  bounds  Galata  on  the 
north,  and  stretches  ambitiously  in  all  directions  on  the 
summit  of  the  plateau. 

East  of  Stamboul,  across  the  Bosphorus  on  the  Asiatic 
shore,  is  Scutari,  called  by  the  Ottomans  Uscudar.  This 
is  the  third  among  those  three  chief  factors  which  con- 
stitute so  large  a  portion  of  Constantinople.  On  a  trian- 
gular promontory  which  forces  its  way  into  the  strait,  its 
buildings  climb  the  slopes  and  cover  part  of  the  site  of 
ancient  Chrysopolis,  the  City  of  Chryses,  or  the  Golden 
City. 

These  three  principal  sections  have  many  features  in 
common,  and  yet  each  bears  its  own  character,  individual 
and  distinct.  Scutari  remains  fixed  in  Oriental  quiet, 
almost  undisturbed  by  the   rush  of   the  nineteenth  cen- 

fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  hills  from  the  seventh,  are  the  Etmei'dan,  or  Meat 
Market,  Yeni  Valideh  Djami  of  Ak  Serai,  and  the  ancient  Church  of  Pana- 
chrantos.  On  the  seventh  hill  are  the  Column  of  Arcadius,  Daoud  Pasha 
Djami,  Ilasseki  Djami,  and  the  Cistern  of  Mokios,  and  on  the  southern  slope 
many  ancient  Christian  churches  now  mosques. 


16  CONSTANTINOPLE 

tury.  It  is  distinctively  Moslem  and  Ottoman,  presenting 
the  dreamy  repose  and  apathetic  immobility  which  char- 
acterize an  Asiatic  city.  Its  cemetery,  "  a  wilderness  of 
tombs,"  perhaps  the  vastest  Mussulman  cemetery  in  the 
wdrld,  covers  with  its  thousands  of  high,  motionless, 
funereal  trees  the  loftiest  elevation  in  Scutari,  and  is 
the  most  appalling  feature  in  the  landscape. 

'•The  cypresses  of  Scutari 

In  stern  magnificence  look  down 
On  the  bright  lake  and  stream  of  sea, 

And  glittering  theatre  of  town: 
Above  the  throng  of  rich  kiosks, 

Above  the  towers  in  triple  tire, 
Above  the  domes  of  loftiest  mosques, 

These  pinnacles  of  death  aspire." 

In  sharp  contrast  stand  out  Galata  and  Pera,  the 
residence  of  the  Franks.  Galata,  a  mediaeval  Italian 
colonial  settlement,  still  shows  many  marks  of  her 
origin,  but  has  become  the  vast  modern  counting-house, 
the  European  commercial  centre,  of  the  capital.  Pera, 
the  home  of  the  European  ambassadors,  where  diplomacy 
is  ever  knotting  the  tangled  skein  of  the  Eastern  Ques- 
tion, is  a  European  city  of  to-day  in  the  recent  structure 
of  her  houses  and  the  regularity  of  her  streets. 

Stamboul  appears  a  reluctant  compromise  between 
the  two  extremes.  Ancient  and  modern,  European  and 
Asiatic,  Christian  and  Moslem,  Stamboul  is  a  Janus 
among  the  cities,  facing  in  every  direction,  and  yet,  by 
the  relentless  march  of  events,  forced  to  feel  the  breath 
of  western  enterprise,  and  slowly  transformed  by  its 
influence. 

Nor  do  the  less  populous  and  widely  scattered  sections 
of    the  capital    lack   each   a   marked   individuality  of  its 


CONSTANTINOPLE  17 

own.  Some  are  inhabited  only  by  a  single  nationality, 
and  avoided  by  all  the  rest.  In  some,  representatives 
of  a  dozen  peoples  dwell  side  by  side,  and  churches  of 
different  Christian  faiths,  and  synagogues,  and  mosques 
rise  together  fraternally  toward  the  sky.  Some  of  the 
villages  on  the  Bosphorus  are  separated  from  each  other 
by  only  a  few  furlongs  in  territorial  distance,  and  yet 
are  centuries  apart.  I  recall  one  hamlet  which  seems 
stranded,  "left  by  the  stream  whose  waves  are  years." 
Apparently  the  last  news  which  broke  in  on  its  slum- 
berous quiet  was  the  tidings  that  Constantinople  had 
fallen,  that  supreme  tragedy  of  four  hundred  years  ago. 
I  recall  another  whose  inhabitants  are  agitated  by  a 
change  in  the  German  ministry  or  by  a  breath  from 
Paris.  In  this  diversity  of  life  and  thought  one  of  the 
most  subtle  fascinations  of  Constantinople  is  to  be  found. 


VOL.  I.  —  2 


II 


HISTORY   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


HH  EW  cities  have  equalled  Constantino- 
ple in  importance.  None  in  ancient 
or  modern  times  have  exceeded  it  in 
dramatic  interest.  During  centuries 
of  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the  fore- 
most city  of  the  world,  surpassing 
every  other  hi  populousness,  strength, 
and  beauty,  and  in  the  high  develop- 
ment of  its  civilization.  To  the 
Mussulman  it  ranks  next  to  Mecca, 
Medina,  and  Jerusalem.  The  Christian  must  regard 
it  with  still  greater  reverence.  It  was  the  first  city 
distinctively  Christian,  erected  by  the  first  Christian 
Emperor  on  the  ruins  of  vanquished  paganism. 

Here,  almost  in  sight  of  the  dome  of  Sancta  Sophia,  was 
wrought  out  the  theology  of  the  undivided  Church  by 
her  Ecumenical  Councils.  Here,  in  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  preached  that  galaxy  of  pulpit  orators,  the 
Chrysostoms  and  Gregorys,  who  in  biblical  and  pious 
eloquence  have  never  been  surpassed.  Here,  ever  since 
its  foundation,  is  the  chief  seat  of  that  venerable 
communion  which,  alone  of  Christian  Churches,  uses 
no  mere  translation,  crude  and  imperfect,  of  the  Gos- 
pels in  its  worship,  but  the  vernacular  of  whose  rit- 
ual is  even  now  daily  chanted  in  the  very  language 
in    which     the    New    Testament    was    inspired.      Here 


HISTORY   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  19 

were  developed  the  first  principles  of  Byzantine  art, 
which,  as  handmaid  of  the  Christian  faith,  "  has  had 
more  influence  than  any  other  in  the  church  architecture 
of  Western  Europe."  Here  was  framed  that  marvel- 
lous Justinian  Code,  digest  and  compendium  of  all  the 
laws  known  before,  which,  however  modified,  still  survives 
and  sways  in  all  subsequent  legislation.  Here,  in  clois- 
ters and  libraries,  while  Europe  was  buried  hi  barbarism, 
were  preserved  the  precious  volumes,  and  among  her  sons 
were  being  nursed  the  world-famous  teachers,  to  whom  in 
their  subsequent  dispersion  is  commonly  attributed  the 
intellectual  revival,  the  Renaissance. 

At  the  same  time  the  history  of  no  city  has  been  more 
disfigured  and  obscured  by  hostile  prejudice  and  passion. 
The  struggle  between  the  Sees  of  Rome  and  Constanti- 
nople —  on  the  part  of  the  former  for  supremacy,  and  on 
that  of  the  latter  for  equality  —  is  perhaps  the  most 
envenomed  and  longest  continued  of  any  in  church  his- 
tory, all  the  bitterer  because  of  differences  in  ecclesiastical 
practice  and  creed.  The  people  of  Western  Europe  and 
America,  whether  within  or  without  the  pale  of  the 
Roman  communion,  have  inherited  and  believed  what- 
ever was  taught  by  the  Crusaders  and  Latin  priests 
concerning  Constantinople,  the  Eastern  Empire,  and  the 
Eastern  Church.  Too  often  some  stranger,  careless  of  the 
truth,  or  unquestioning  inheritor  of  Papal  prejudice,  has 
written  that  the  history  of  this  city  "  presents  only  deeds 
without  grandeur,  struggles  without  glory,  and  emperors 
known  above  all  by  their  crimes  and  follies." 

Yet  the  fact  remains  that  during  more  than  eleven  hun- 
dred years  after  her  consecration  by  Constantine,  Constan- 
tinople yielded  but  once  to  foreign  attack,  when  in  the 
thirteenth  century  she  was  sacked  by  the  Latin  Crusaders. 


20  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Many  times  assaulted  by  Persia,  which,  resurrected  under 
her  Sassanide  kings,  had  reached  a  height  of  prosperity 
and  power  ancient  Persia  hardly  attained ;  by  the  Arabs, 
in  all  the  fiery  glow  of  a  new  and  till  then  triumphant 
faith;  by  innumerable  hosts  constantly  renewed,  of  Gutlis, 
Avars,  Bulgarians,  and  Slavonians,  —  enemies  as  powerful 
and  relentless  as  ever  thundered  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  — 
Constantinople  vanquished  them  all,  surrendering  only  at 
last  to  Sultan  Mohammed  II  and  the  Ottomans.  No 
other  capital  presents  so  sublime  a  spectacle  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  Alone  of  all  the  cities  of  Europe,  she  tow- 
ered erect,  unsubmerged  amid  the  wild  torrents  of  invasion. 
This  record  is  the  highest  tribute  both  to  the  pre-eminent 
superiority  of  her  position  and  to  the  skill  and  heroism  of 
her  sons. 

The  History  of  Constantinople  divides  itself  into  three 
distinct  epochs.  The  transition  from  one  to  the  other  is 
not  gradual,  with  its  boundary  line  indefinite,  but  sudden 
and  complete.  Even  the  day,  almost  the  hour,  of  the 
transition  may  be  noted.  In  each  epoch  the  city  has 
borne  a  different  name,  been  enclosed  by  different  bound- 
aries, been  administered  by  a  radically  different  system 
of  government,  and  been  dominated  by  a  different  faith. 
Each  transition  has  been  made  by  a  people  of  blood, 
customs,  and  language  different  from  the  preceding 
proprietors. 

The  First  Epoch  extends  from  the  earliest  times  to  May 
11,  330.  This  may  be  called  Classic,  or  Greek.  Mythol- 
ogy blends  with  its  earliest  traditions  ;  yet  this  epoch  em- 
braces in  addition  a  duration  of  over  eight  hundred  years 
after  the  dawn  of  authentic  history. 

The  Second  Epoch  extends  from  May  11,  330,  to  May 
29,    1453,  two   springtimes  eleven  hundred  and   twenty- 


HISTORY   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  21 

three  years  apart,  indicating  its  beginning  and  its  end. 
Though  at  first  Roman,  it  is  more  appropriately  called 
Byzantine.  This  period  almost  exactly  coincides  with  the 
duration  cf  the  Middle  Ages,  it  and  the  Middle  Ages  ter- 
minating together. 

The  Third  Epoch  extends  from  May  20,  14-33,  to  the 
present  time.  This  is  the  Ottoman  period.  It  ushers  in 
and  is  synchronous  with  modern  times. 

THE   FIRST   EPOCH 

Byzantium  was  founded  in  that  misty  age  when  the 
swarming,  adventurous  sons  of  Greece  were  dotting  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  and  its  tributary  waters  with 
their  colonies.  The  person  of  the  Founder,  dimly  dis- 
cerned on  that  border-land  of  time  where  mythology 
and  history  encroach  upon  each  other,  appears  of  colossal 
proportions  and  sprung  from  divine  origin.  His  parents 
are  the  sea-god  Poseidon  and  Keroessa,  daughter  of  tor- 
mented Io  and  of  omnipotent  Zeus.  His  name  is  derived 
from  the  nymph  Byzia,  who  nursed  him  at  his  birth.  He 
wins  Phidalia,  the  fair  daughter  of  Barbyses,  King  of  the 
Hellespont,  as  his  bride.  The  maiden  had  already  begun 
the  erection  of  the  city,  but  associates  her  husband  in  her 
undertaking,  and  confers  on  the  nascent  town  her  hus- 
band's name.  Poseidon  and  Apollo  share  with  mortals 
the  labors  of  the  foundation ;  and  the  Erythrean  Sibyl 
reveals  that  its  walls  are  the  masonry  of  the  gods. 
Heemus,  King  of  the  Scythians,  descends  from  his  moun- 
tains to  contend  with  Byzas,  and  is  killed  by  him  in  single 
fight.  No  better  fares  Odryses,  another  Scythian  king, 
who  attacks  Byzantium  while  Byzas  and  the  men  are  ab- 
sent, but  whom  Phidalia  and  the  women  defeat,  —  the  only 


22 


COXSTA  XTIXOPLE 


Byzas 


weapon  of   the  female  garrison   being   the   innumerable 
serpents  which  they  hurl. 

History,  more  definite  in  statement,  is  perhaps  no  more 
exact.  In  the  seventh  century  before  Christ,  Byzas,  King 
of  MegariSj  led  a  company  of  his  countrymen  to  Lygos,  on 
the  Thracian  Bosphorus,  and  there  built  Byzantium.  In 
after  years  Argos,  Athens,  and  Miletos 
disputed  with  Megaris  the  honor  of  its 
foundation.  The  early  colonists  spoke 
the  Doric  dialect,  and  some  of  the  ori- 
ginal settlers  may  have  been  Dorians. 
Nothing  is  known  of  the  people  they 
found  on  their  arrival.  The  site  was 
a  marvellously  wise  selection,  unsur- 
passed in  natural  beauty,  easy  of  de- 
fence against  the  neighboring  barba- 
rians,  and  commanding  the  only  water 
route  between  the  Black  and  Mediterranean  seas.  On 
the  death  of  Byzas,  Dinos,  a  noble  of  Chalcedon,  was 
chosen  king.  During  the  struggle  against  Scythian  and 
Thracian  foes  he  had  been  the  city's  constant  friend.  A 
generation  later  a  second  colony  of  Megarians  arrived,  led 
by  Xeuxippos. 

When  Darius  Hystaspes  crossed  the  Bosphorus  against 
the  Scythians,  and  the  long,  glorious  struggle  between 
Persia  and  Greece  began,  Byzantium,  on  the  eastern 
verge  of  the  continent,  was  the  first  European  city  to 
fall  into  Persian  hands.  Henceforward,  in  all  the  vicis- 
situdes of  the  kindred  Grecian  cities  during  the  next 
eight  centuries,  she  had  her  share.  Joining  in  the  Ionian 
revolt,  she  was  burned  to  the  ground  on  the  triumph  of 
Persia,  and  her  surviving  inhabitants  sought  a  refuge  at 
Mesembria,  on  the  inhospitable  shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  23 

When  the  Persians  were  expelled  from  Greece,  Byzan- 
tium was  delivered  by  Pausanias,  the  conqueror  at  Platsea, 
who  so  rebuilt  and  enlarged  the  ruined  city  as  to  be 
reckoned  its  second  Founder.  Here  was  the  scene  of  the 
great  Spartan's  treason,  when  from  Byzantium  he  offered 
to  betray  to  Xerxes  Sparta,  Athens,  and  all  Greece. 

In  the  suicidal  strife  of  Athens  and  Sparta,  when  each 
was  desperate  for  a  selfish  supremacy,  Byzantium  swung 
from  side  to  side  according  as  either  was  in  the  ascendant, 
or  as  the  democratic  or  autocratic  spirit  of  her  citi- 
zens prevailed.  The  return  of  the  Ten  Thousand  was 
a  thrilling  episode  in  her  career,  when  she  barely  escaped 
destruction,  and  was  only  rescued  by  the  eloquent  oration 
of  Xenophon  to  his  troops.  Athens  had  been  her  con- 
stant oppressor,  and  was  her  natural  rival.  Heading  a 
coalition  of  island  states  and  aided  by  King  Mausolus, 
she  was  able  definitely  to  throw  off  the  Athenian  yoke 
and  became  herself  the  foremost  maritime  Greek  city. 

The  rising  Macedonian  Empire  found  her  its  steadfast 
and  undismayed  antagonist.  Philip  of  Maceclon  with  a 
powerful  army  besieged  Byzantium.  Fired  by  the  burn- 
ing eloquence  of  Demosthenes,  Athens  resolved,  sinking 
the  memory  of  old  hatreds  and  seeking  the  welfare  of 
Greece,  to  send  ships  and  men  to  the  aid  of  the  endan- 
gered city.  One  dark,  stormy  night  Philip  endeavored 
to  capture  the  city  by  surprise.  Some  of  his  soldiers  had 
scaled  the  wall ;  others  by  subterranean  passages  were 
almost  inside.  Suddenly  the  clear  moon  burst  through 
the  clouds ;  the  dogs'  barking  roused  the  weary  garrison, 
and  the  Macedonians  were  driven  back.  That  was  the 
crisis  of  the  two  years'  siege. 

The  Byzantines  saw  in  their  marvellous  deliverance 
the  interposition  of  torch-bearing  Hecate.     To  her  they 


24  CONSTANTINOPLE 

erected  a  commemorative  statue,  and  changed  the  name 
of  the  region  where  it  stood  from  Bosporion  to  Phos- 
phorion.  Henceforth  the  crescent  and  star,  or  the  cres- 
cent and  seven  stars,  symbols  of  the  goddess  of  the  moon, 
appeared  on  the  Byzantine  coins  as  commonly  as  Poseidon 
and  his  trident,  or  the  dolphins,  or  the  cow  Io,  or  the  fishes, 
or  the  bunch  of  grapes ;  all  those  devices  had  reference  to 
the  legendary  past  or  to  the  prosperity  of  the  city. 

Nobly  the  Byzantines  had  borne  themselves  in  the 
conflict,  enduring  every  hardship  and  repairing  their 
shattered  walls  with  the  gravestones  of  their  ancestors. 
But  without  the  whole-hearted  assistance  of  Athens  their 
heroism  would  have  been  in  vain.  Three  colossal  statues 
they  erected  in  the  harbor,  representing  the  cities  of 
Byzantium  and  Perinthos,  likewise  besieged  by  Philip, 
crowning  their  savior  Athens.  They  decreed  right  of 
citizenship  to  the  Athenians,  precedence  at  the  public 
ceremonies,  and  exemption  from  onerous  duties.  This  de- 
cree is  imperishably  preserved,  quoted  in  the  masterpiece 
of  the  chief  orator  of  all  time  in  his  speech  concerning 
the  Crown. 

The  third  century  before  Christ  was  a  hard  one  for 
the  Byzantines.  The  warring  Gauls  and  Thracians 
rivalled  each  other  in  extortions  from  the  unhappy  city ; 
and  the  allied  maritime  Greek  states  ravaged  her  terri- 
tories, and  swept  her  commerce  from  the  sea.  At  last 
she  became  by  treaty  the  ally  of  the  Romans,  and  ren- 
dered faithful  service  against  the  pseudo-Philip,  Antiochus, 
and  Mithridates,  the  relentless  enemies  of  Rome.  Cicero 
bore  tribute  to  her  fidelity,  when  denouncing  the  avari- 
cious Piso  for  his  wrongs  against  this  steadfast  ally. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  Byzantium 
was  prosperous  and  at  peace.     The  loss  of  her  quondam 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


25 


quasi-independence  was  more  than  compensated  by  the 
advantages  enjoyed  as  part  of  the  Universal  Empire. 
Through  all  the  phases  of  Greek  political  experience  she 
had  passed;  monarchic  in  her  origin,  democratic,  auto- 
cratic, oligarchic,  by  turns ;  all  systems  she  had  tried, 
and  most  systems  more  than  once,  and  was  now  a  "  free 
city"  and  "ally"  of  the  Romans.  Her  culture,  wealth, 
and  beauty,  her  treasures  of  antiquity  and  art,  gave  her 
universal  fame,  and  rendered  her  a  renowned  resort. 

The  independent  spirit  of  her  inhabitants,  her  capability 
of  obstinate  resistance,  her  wonderful  vitality,  or  recupera- 
tive power,  made  her  the  object  of  constant  suspicion  to 
the  emperors.  Vespasian  stripped  her  of  her  privileges 
and  reduced  her  to  the  most  profound  subjection. 

In  the  second  century  she  embraced  the  cause  of  Niger 
against  Septimius  Severus,  in  their 
struggle  for  the  imperial  crown. 
Even  after  his  cause  was  lost  and 
Niger  dead,  Byzantium  was  faithful 
to  his  memory.  During  a  three 
years'  siege  she  maintained  a  re- 
sistance among  the  sublimest  in 
history,  withstanding  unaided  and 
alone  all  the  forces  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  Men  tore  timber  from 
their  houses  to  repair  the  ships. 
Women  cut  off  their  hair  to  make 
bowstrings  and  ropes.  The  starv- 
ing garrison  were  sometimes  kept  alive  by  human  flesh. 
The  triumphant  Severus  visited  the  heroic  city  with  un- 
manly revenge :  the  garrison  and  magistrates  were  put  to 
death ;  the  high,  broad  walls,  the  stones  of  which  were 
bound  together  by  clamps  of  iron,  her  glory,  the  bulwark 


Septimius  Severus 


26  CONSTANTINOPLE 

of  civilization  against  the  northern  hordes,  were  levelled 
with  the  ground,  and  the  soil  whereon  they  stood  was 
furrowed  hy  the  plough.  The  very  name  Byzantium  was 
blotted  out  and  the  abandoned  spot  called  Antonina.  Six 
years  after,  when  the  bloody  rage  of  resentment  and  tri- 
umph had  cooled,  Severus  realized  the  political  crime  he 
had  committed,  and  endeavored  to  rebuild  the  city.  Quickly 
she  arose  from  her  ruins  and  reassumed  her  former  name. 

Two  generations  later  most  of  her  citizens,  for  some 
unknown  reason,  were  destroyed  in  indiscriminate  mas- 
sacre by  the  soldiers  of  the  ignoble  Emperor  Gallienus. 

In  323,  Byzantium  declared  for  Licinius  against  Con- 
stantine, and  adhered  with  her  oldtime  heroic  fidelity  to 
the  ill-fated  sovereign  of  her  choice.  When  Licinius, 
overwhelmed  at  Adrianople,  escaped  to  her  for  refuge, 
she  received  him  with  open  arms.  Meanwhile  the  hosts 
of  Constantine  were  pressing  ever  nearer.  When  the 
fleet  of  Licinius  was  defeated  at  the  Dardanelles,  the 
terrified  Emperor  fled  to  Chalkedon.  Still  the  Byzan- 
tines with  traditional  obstinacy  withstood  the  skilful 
and  vigorous  assaults  of  Constantine.  When  Byzantium 
at  last  submitted,  hy  her  fall  Constantine  was  rendered 
sole  master  of  the  reunited  Empire,  and  the  farther 
resistance  of  Licinius  became  hopeless  and  vain. 

By  the  unrivalled  advantages  of  her  situation,  the 
conquered  city  vancpiished  the  conqueror.  In  her  site 
he  found  what  his  eye  of  statesman  and  warrior  had 
sought  in  vain  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic  and  ^Egean. 
On  the  throne  of  universal  dominion,  which  Imperial 
Rome  was  abdicating  with  her  forsaken  gods,  Constantine 
called  Byzantium  to  sit,  Herein  he,  whose  title  of  the 
Great  is  "  deserved  rather  by  what  he  did  than  by  what 
he  was,"  gave  the  most  convincing  proof  of  his  profound 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  27 

political  sagacity.     "  No  city  chosen  by  the  art  of  man 
has  been  so  well  chosen  and  so  permanent." 

It  is  impossible  to  know  with  certainty  when  Constan- 
tine first  decided  on  his  new  capital  or  began  its  erec- 
tion :  probably  in  325,  directly  after  the  Council  of  Nice. 
An  eagle's  flight  from  Chrysopolis  to  Byzantium,  accord- 
ing to  the  legend,  first  inspired  the  conception  in  his 
mind  of  Byzantium  as  the  seat  of  empire.  When  the 
following  night  he  slept  within  her  walls,  another  legend 
states  how  the  tutelar  genius  of  the  place  appeared  to 
him  in  a  dream  as  a  woman  aged  and  decrepit  suddenly 
transformed  into  a  radiant  maiden,  whom  his  own  hands 
adorned  with  all  the  insignia  of  royalty. 

The  new  city  was  to  include  not  only  old  Byzantium, 
but  an  area  vastly  extended  toward  the  west.  At  the 
head  of  a  solemn  and  magnificent  retinue,  the  Emperor 
traced  the  boundaries  with  his  spear.  When  the  cour- 
tiers, astounded  at  the  distance  traversed,  asked  him  to 
halt,  he  replied,  "  I  must  follow  till  He  who  leads  me 
stops.''  Later  he  declared  that  he  marked  out  its  limits 
"jubente  Deo."  Its  completion  was  pressed  on  with 
feverish  impatience. 

To  the  enlargement  and  adornment  of  the  new  capital, 
all  the  untold  wealth  of  the  Roman  Empire,  artistic, 
inventive,  financial,  was  devoted  during  years.  The 
resources  and  energies  of  the  mightiest  empire  in 
Europe  —  expended  by  the  grandest  of  all  her  czars 
upon  the  city  of  the  Neva  —  were  trivial  and  cheap 
compared  with  the  exhaustless  treasures  Constantine 
could  lavish  upon  the  city  of  the  Marmora  and  of  the 
Golden  Horn.  Peter  could  adorn  his  capital  only  with 
what  Russian  art  could  devise  or  Russian  gold  could 
buy.     Constantine,  sole  sovereign  of  the  sole  empire  on 


28  CONSTANTINOPLE 

the  globe,  had  but  to  rai.se  his  linger,  to  breathe  his 
wish,  and  all  the  treasures  of  classic  art,  unequalled  to 
this  day,  from  all  over  the  civilized  world  poured  to  this 
single  harbor  like  rivers  to  one  sea.  From  Greece  and 
the  Grecian  Isles,  from  Syria  and  Egypt  and  Africa, 
from  Spain,  from  southern  Gaul,  from  Italy,  ay,  even 
from  dismantled  Rome  herself.  —  from  wherever  there 
was  that  which  was  classic,  that  which  was  rare,  that 
which  was  priceless,  —  it  was  brought  over  land  and  sea 
to  deck  the  world's  new  cpaeen. 

THE   SECOXD  EPOCH 

During  the  Second  Epoch,  as  also  in  the  Third,  the 
history  of  Constantinople  is  inextricably  interwoven  with 
that  of  an  empire.  The  transition  in  her  political  life 
is  enormous.  Thus  far  she  had  been  a  city  complete  in 
herself,  at  first  isolated  in  her  ancient  Greek  independ- 
ence and  then,  like  countless  other  municipal  atoms,  sub- 
ject to  the  far  distant,  almost  unseen  power  of  Rome. 
Now  she  had  become  herself  the  head  and  heart,  whose 
nerves  thrilled  even  at  a  rumor  from  remotest  provinces, 
and  in  whose  arteries  and  veins  throbbed  all  the  political 
currents  of  mankind.  The  story  of  her  life  taxes  the 
learning  and  prolixity  of  a  Gibbon  and  a  Lebeau.  A 
brief  sketch  like  this  can  glance  only  at  a  few  momen- 
tous events,  which,  like  lofty  mountains,  loom  above  the 
other  peaks  in  the  prodigious  chain  of  her  history. 

The  city,  as  capital  of  the  Roman  Empire,  was 
consecrated  by  Constantine  to  the  service  of  Christ. 
The  many  ancient  temples  that  crowned  the  first  hill 
had  doubtless  been  destroyed.  But  it  is  too  much  to 
say,  as    does    Dean    Stanley,  "  Except  during   the    short 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  29 

reign  of  Julian,  no  column  of  sacrificial  smoke  has  gone 
up  from  the  Seven  Hills  of  Constantinople."  Yet,  above 
all  other  cities  of  the  world,  she  was  from  her  very  birth 
a  city  of  churches. 

That  eleventh  of  May  was  the  proudest  day  in 
Constantine's  marvellous  career.  It  was  the  baptismal 
day  of  the  new  metropolis  which  he  had  given  to  civil- 
ization and  to  Christianity.  Imagination  can  faintly  de- 
pict the  partly  Pagan,  partly  Christian,  splendor  of  the 
dedicatory  rites.  Within  the  Hippodrome,  the  crowning 
structure  of  the  city,  itself  glorious  beyond  description 
with  bronze  and  marble  masterpieces,  was  celebrated  the 
grand  inaugural.  Into  its  enclosure  swept  the  great  pro- 
cession of  all  that  was  mightiest,  fairest,  and  most  gor- 
geous in  the  State. 

The  Emperor  ascended  to  his  throne  in  the  Chamber 
of  the  Tribunal,  or  the  Kathisma, 
whence  he  could  behold  the  thou- 
sands of  his  subjects.  Around  him 
stood  the  surviving  members  of  the 
Flavian  family.  His  children's 
mother,  the  fair  Fausta,  whom  he 
had  smothered  in  the  bath,  and  his 
oldest  son  Crispus,  whom  he  had 
unjustly  condemned,  were  indeed 
wanting.  His  mother,  Saint  Hel- 
ena, had  just  died,  but  most  of  the 

•   it  x1  mi     L    Saint  Helena,  Mother  of 

imperial   house  were  there.      lhat   „  ~ 

1  CONSTANTINE    THE    GtREAT 

many  of  those  princes  were  in  after 

years  to  die  in  open  war  against  one  another,  or  by  secret 
assassination,  no  seer  or  prophet  beholding  the  brilliant 
spectacle  could  have  foretold.  Their  approaching  destiny 
cast  no  shadow  upon  the  splendor  of  the  scene.     In  the 


30  CONSTANTINOPLE 

lodges  stretching  on  either  side  to  the  east  and  west 
limits  of  the  Hippodrome,  were  the  members  of  the  just- 
created  Senate,  the  Consuls,  the  grand  officials,  the  chief 
generals  of  the  state.  In  the  lower  range  of  seats,  the 
Podium,  were  patricians  and  magistrates,  wearing  the 
new  robes  of  their  newly  assumed  offices.  Ranged  on 
the  benches,  thronging  the  lofty  promenade,  were  the 
citizens  of  every  rank,  many  with  their  wives.  Over 
beyond  the  Gate  of  the  Dead,  in  the  Sphendone  to  its 
topmost  range,  seethed  the  packed  multitude  of  the 
rabble. 

By  the  lips  of  the  Patriarch,  the  new  name  Nova 
Roma  was  pronounced,  which  should  blot  out  the  heathen 
name  and  the  heathen  past  of  Old  Byzantium,  but  which 
itself  the  Greek  title  Constantinoupolis  was  shortly  to 
supersede.  As  the  rites  were  ending,  soldiers,  clad  in 
long  cloaks  and  bearing  lighted  candles,  brought  the 
statue  of  Constantine  into  the  Hippodrome  The  im- 
mense assembly  kneeling  paid  homage  to  the  statue, 
and  then  reverently  in  august  procession  bore  it  to 
crown  the  Porphyry  Column  in  the  Forum.  Mean- 
while, "  the  clergy,  erect  in  the  solemn  congregation, 
cried  a  hundred  times  with  a  mighty  voice,  i  Kyrie  elee- 
son.' '  During  subsequent  centuries  this  ceremony  was 
repeated  upon  the  anniversary  day.  On  a  triumphal  car 
each  year  a  gilded  statue  of  Constantine  was  borne  into 
the  Hippodrome.  Then  it  was  stationed  before  the 
throne  of  the  Kathisma,  and  the  Emperor  and  people 
bowed  humbly  before  the  image  of  the  city's  founder. 

The  festivities  after  the  dedication  lasted  forty  days. 

No  author  has  ever  adequately  set  forth  what  would 
have  been  the  inevitable  result  if,  instead  of  becoming 
the  world's  capital,  Byzantium  had  merely  retained  her 


HISTORY   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  31 

former  rank  as  but  one  among  many  cities  of  minor 
importance.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  ethnographic 
face  of  Europe  would  have  been  vastly  modified,  and  its 
religious  aspect  transformed.  Even  as  the  great  capital 
centring  the  power  and  pride  of  a  vast  and  historic  em- 
pire, Constantinople  was  barely  able  to  withstand  her 
multitudinous  and  successive  foes.  Shame  alone  pre- 
vented the  great-soulecl  Heraklios  in  the  seventh  century 
from  removing  the  government  to  Carthage,  and  abandon- 
ing Constantinople  to  the  Persians,  the  Avars,  the  Slavo- 
nians, —  to  whoever  could  seize  it  first. 

Had  Byzantium  continued  to  be  only  a  strongly  forti- 
fied frontier  town,  and  not  the  imperial  capital,  that 
first  Arab  attack  would  have  been  resistless.  More  than 
Gibbon  deduced  from  the  battle  of  Tours  would  have 
been  fulfilled.  In  Europe,  except  at  the  extreme  south 
and  west,  Christianity  at  that  time  had  hardly  any  foot- 
ing. The  fierce  Slavonic  nations,  still  pagan  though  sick 
of  paganism  and  ready  to  change,  would  have  welcomed 
triumphant  Islam,  as  in  keeping  with  their  own  ardent 
spirits.  Westward  the  tide  of  blended  martial  and  re- 
ligious fervor  would  have  rolled,  all-conquering,  all- 
devouring.  The  Saracenic  and  Moorish  hosts  of  the  later 
invasion  which  swept  across  Gibraltar  would  have  united 
with  the  hosts  that  had  subdued  the  Bosphorus.  The 
churches  of  Europe  would  have  been  blotted  out,  as  were 
the  even  stronger  churches  of  northern  Africa,  and  Eu- 
rope would  be  ruled,  not  by  Christianity,  but  by  a  different 
faith  to-clay. 

But  the  contribution  of  her  founder  to  her  inner  politi- 
cal life  was  evil  far  more  than  good.  A  horde  of  disso- 
lute and  idle  persons,  attracted  from  abroad  by  the  stated 
prodigal  largesses   of  the   government  in  distribution   of 


32  CONSTANTINOPLE 

bread,  wine,  and  money,  mixed  with  her  people,  and  de- 
based their  character  and  blood.  The  senatorial  and 
patrician  families  who  had  thronged  from  Italy,  tempted 
by  proffers  of  imperial  favor  and  gifts  of  palaces  and 
lands,  were  by  no  means  Romans  of  "  the  brave  days  of 
old."  The  last  vestige  of  municipal  liberty  was  taken 
away,  and  the  farce  of  electing  powerless  consuls  and  a 
shadowy  senate  was  given  instead. 

As  all  freedom  died,  an  aristocratic  despotism,  all-per- 
vading in  its  repression  and  more  than  Oriental  in  its  un- 
bridled luxury  and  effeminacy,  took  its  place.  The  palace 
of  Constantius  II  is  stated  to  have  contained  no  less  than 
eight  hundred  barbers  and  twelve  hundred  cooks.  Then 
first  appeared  within  the  city,  swelling  the  train  of  Con- 
stantine  and  his  children,  those  sexless  human  monsters 
whose  very  functions  are  an  insult  to  mankind.  Inevi- 
table consequence  of  imperial  prodigality  and  extrava- 
gance, then  followed  such  unjust  and  exorbitant  taxation 
as  crippled  the  rich  and  crushed  the  poor.  Worst  of  all 
was  the  spectacle  of  domestic  horrors  perpetrated  in  his 
family  by  Constantine  and  his  sons.  Many  an  inhuman 
crime,  on  the  Byzantine  throne  in  after  reigns,  had  its 
prototype  and  parallel  in  the  house  of  the  first  Christian 
Emperor. 

It  is  common  even  now  to  sneer  at  the  "  degenerate 
Greeks  of  the  Lower  Empire."  Nevertheless,  nowhere  in 
any  foreign  land  could  be  found  a  city  whose  populace 
might  put  Constantinople  to  the  blush.  At  times,  indeed, 
evil  emperors,  faithless  generals,  recreant  prelates,  passed 
along  the  scene;  and  yet,  during  that  long  period  of 
eleven  centuries,  nowdiere  were  there  more  numerous 
instances  of  heroic  courage,  of  lofty  self-sacrifice,  of  ex- 
alted virtue,  than  among  the  people  of  Constantinople. 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


33 


Even  at  the  time  in  that  long  ago  when  the  picture  seems 
most  sombre  here,  it  was  no  less  bloody,  no  less  mingled 
with  treason,  revolution,  and  assassination  elsewhere'  in 
the  world. 

Even  the  democratic  spirit  was  not  absolutely  extin- 
guished by  absolute  power.  The  imperial  dynasties  sel- 
dom had  long  continuance,  for  loyalty  through  centuries 
to  a  family,  regardless  of  its  deserts,  was  an  impossibility 
to  the  Greeks.  The  last  emperor  even  was  chosen  by  a 
sort  of  national  suffrage,  and,  as  Count  Segur  remarks, 
"  Even  to  the  last  day  election  prevailed,  and  this  feeble 
ray  of  the  ancient  liberty  of  Rome  and  Byzantium  threw 
a  last  flicker  over  their  last  remains." 

During  this  Second  Epoch  eleven  dynasties  come  and 
go.  The  short-lived  family  of  Constantine  disappears  on 
the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  with 
Julian,  the  noblest  of  the  line,  the 
last  pagan  emperor.  Under  the 
family  of  Theodosius,  the  Univer- 
sal Empire  is  rent  in  twain,  never 
to  be  reunited ;  but  his  daughter, 
the  Empress  Saint  Pulcheria,  passes 
away  in  peace,  for  her  dying  eye 
beholds  Arianism  crushed,  and  the 
ashes  forever  cold  on  the  last 
pagan  altar.  The  Thracian  dy- 
nasty leaves  faint  trace  save  in 
the  augmented  prerogatives  of  the 
priests,  from  whose  hand  it  humbled  itself  to  receive  the 
crown. 

Then  arises  an  illustrious  dynasty  of  lowly  origin.  In 
470,  Justin,  a  Thracian  shepherd,  twenty  years  of  age, 
abandoned  his  flocks,  and  with  no  other  possessions  than 

VOL.   I.  — 3 


The  Emperor  Julian 


34 


(OXSTAXTIXOPLE 


The  Empress  Saint 

PuLCHERIA 


a  staff  and  a  leathern  wallet   to  hold  his   bread,  came  to 

Constantinople  in  search  of  adventure.  Whether  his  an- 
cestry was  of  Greek.  Gothic,  or 
Slavic  stock  is  an  undetermined 
(piot ion.  Because  of  his  gigan- 
tic stature,  he  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  enlisting  as  a  common 
soldier.  A  hero  on  the  field  of 
battle,  during  forty-eight  years 
he  slowly  climbed  the  ladder  of 
military  promotion  to  its  top. 
When  in  518  the  Emperor  An- 
astasius  died,  and  left  no  heir 
save  kinsmen  unworthy  of  the 
succession,  the  concordant  voice 
of  the  army,  senate,  and  people 

acknowledged  the  former  shepherd  as  the  fittest  occupant 

of   the  throne.      Sim- 


ple, austere,  utterly 
illiterate,  yet  able 
to  discern  talent  and 
willing  to  employ  it 
wherever  found,  he 
justified  the  popular 
choice.  Dying  at  the 
age  of  seventy-seven, 
he  bequeathed  the 
crown  to  his  nephew. 
Justinian  the  Great. 
The  reign  of  the 
latter,  through  its 
achievements  in  architecture 
war,  is  among   the    most  brilliant  of   authentic   history. 


Justinian  the  Great 


legislation,    industry,    and 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


The  victories  of  his  generals,  Belisarius  and  Narses,  in 
Italy,  Africa,  and  Persia,  and  along  the  Danube  may  be 
forgotten,  for  those  martial  triumphs  were  mainly  tempo- 
rary in  their  results.  But  Sancta  Sophia  and  the  Justinian 
Code  are  more  en- 
during and  more 
glorious  monuments 
of  the  greatness  of 
Justinian.  The  in- 
troduction of  the 
silkworm  and  the 
creation  of  the  silk 
industry  through 
the  countries  west 
of  China  is  the  still 
more  beneficent  ac- 
complishment of  his 
reign.  The  glory 
and  renown  of  the 
sovereign  was  fitly 
shared  by  the  Em- 
press Theodora, 
whose  image  ap- 
pears con  j  ointly  w  it  h 
her  husband's  upon 
the  coin,  and  whose 
name  is  cited  with 
his  in  public  decrees. 

This  is,  moreover,  the  period  when  the  absorption  or  dis- 
appearance of  the  Italian  element  in  the  state  becomes 
complete  ;  when  native  forces  reassert  their  full  supremacy, 
and  the  native  language  retakes  its  place  as  the  universal 
medium  of  speech.     After  Justinian  dies  in  565,  the  Em- 


The  Empress  Theodora,  Wife  of 
Justinian 


36  CONSTANTINOPLE 

pire  can  no  longer  be  called  or  considered  Roman  or  Latin ; 
it  is  henceforth  and  distinctively  Byzantine,  or  Greek. 

Shortly  after  the  blood  of  Justinian  became  extinct, 
the  Heraclian  dynasty  succeeded.  Then  burst  the  new 
religion  in  a  whirlwind  from  Arabia.  Fort}'  years  after 
the  death  of  the  Prophet,  the  whole  strength  of  trium- 
phant Islam  at  the  zenith  of  its  power  was  hurled  in  a 
seven  years'  desperate  siege  against  Constantinople.  The 
patient  courage  of  Constantine  IV,  the  devotion  of  the 
populace,  and  the  invention  of  Greek  fire  repulsed  every 
assault  of  the  besiegers;  at  last,  the  defeated  and  broken- 
hearted Caliph,  by  an  annual  tribute  of  gold,  horses,  and 
slaves,  purchased  peace.  This  is  the  momentous  and  most 
memorable  event  in  the  history  of  Constantinople,  and  the 
most  far-reaching  in  its  results. 

Hardly  a  century  later,  the  Arabs  attempted  a  second 
siege,  little  less  appalling  than  the  first.  One  hundred 
and  eighty  thousand  Moslem  warriors,  conveyed  on  two 
thousand  six  hundred  ships,  fought  through  eighteen 
months  with  tireless  valor  to  concpier  the  city,  but  fought 
in  vain. 

Scarce  had  the  Arabs  been  repulsed  when  the  rough 
Isaurian  family,  more  able  to  wield  a  sword  than  to  mould 
a  creed,  precipitated  the  iconoclastic  controversy.  Coun- 
cil and  counter-council,  persecution  and  anti-persecution, 
racked  the  city.  Zealots  won  the  martyr's  palm  by  dying 
to  destroy  or  to  preserve  some  holy  image  or  mosaic  picture. 
Artists  were  driven  from  the  city,  schools  were  shut,  libra- 
ries burned,  civilization  was  set  back,  and  barbarism  seemed 
returning.  Through  more  than  a  hundred  years  the  con- 
flict raged  with  slight  cessation  till  the  Emperor  The- 
ophilos  on  his  deathbed  enjoined  on  his  wife  Theodora  the 
duty  of  enforcing  peace. 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


37 


The  Empire  seems  tottering  to  its  fall.  Unnumbered 
hostile  hosts  of  Arabs,  Russians,  Bulgarians,  Germans, 
pour  through  the  eastern,  northern,  and  western  fron- 
tiers, united  only  in  a  common  purpose  to  break  the 
Empire  and  take  the  city.  A  Slavonian  groom  founds 
the  Macedonian  Dynasty.  By  him  and  his  successors, 
Romanos  I,  Nikephoros  II,  John  Zimiskes,  Basil  Bulgar- 
oktonos,  emperors  whose 
helmets  are  a  fitter  head- 
dress than  their  crowns, 
the  throne  is  maintained 
with  glory,  the  rights 
of  the  national  church  as- 
serted, the  empire  reorgan- 
ized, the  tide  of  invasion 
rolled  beyond  the  borders, 
which  are  extended  to  the 
Euphrates,  Italy  is  reu- 
nited to  the  Empire,  the 
Emir  of  Aleppo  forced  to 
pay  tribute,  and  the  Caliph 
to  sue  for  peace.  The 
scars  of  the  iconoclastic 
struggle  disappear  from 
the  face  of  the  city. 

Loosed  by  a  restless  hermit  and  an  ambitious  pope, 
the  deluge  of  the  Crusaders  sweeps  toward  the  Holy 
Land,  as  menacing  to  friends  as  foes,  to  Christians  as  to 
Moslems,  threatening  to  engulf  the  capital  and  Empire 
on  its  way.  The  courage  and  astuteness  of  the  Kom- 
nenan  House  maintain  the  majesty  of  the  capital  and 
the  independence  of  the  Empire.  Had  the  head  of 
Alexios    I   Komnenos    been   less    shrewd    and   his    hand 


Costume  of  Emperor  and  Patri- 
arch prior  to  1053 


38  CONSTANTINOPLE 

less  firm,  the  Eastern  Empire  would  have  been  swept 
away  in  the  First   Crusade. 

At  last  arrives  the  most  inglorious  period  in  the  city's 
history,  when  the  Angelos  Dynasty  disgrace  the  throne 
nineteen  shameful  years.  By  their  fraud,  treachery,  and 
incapacity  all  that  the  Komnenoi  gained  is  lost.  The 
character  of  the  rulers  reacts  to  make  the  people  as  con- 
temptible as  themselves.  Foreign  foes  are  summoned  to 
adjust  dynastic  wrongs,  and  the  way  prepared  for  the 
overthrow"  of  Constantinople  by  the  Fourth  Crusade. 
The  Venetians  and  Franks  besiege  the  city  to  replace 
the  deposed  Isaac  Angelos  upon  his  throne.  Soon  after, 
they  assault  the  capital  on  their  own  account.  At  its 
capture  is  ushered  in  the  Latin  domination  of  the  Em- 
pire, when  ensues  the  most  disastrous  and  pitiable  half- 
century  Constantinople  has  ever  known. 

After  the  horrors  of  the  sack,  the  city  is  parcelled  out 
among  the  merciless  conquerors.  One-fourth  is  assigned 
to  Baldwin,  Count  of  Flanders,  elected  first  Latin  Em- 
peror ;  three-fourths  are  divided  equally  between  the 
Venetians  and  Franks.  Their  lives  are  all  the  trembling 
citizens  can  call  their  own.  The  Latin  priests  hold  for- 
cible possession  of  the  churches,  elect  a  Latin  Patriarch, 
and  proclaim  the  submission  of  Orthodoxy  to  the  See  of 
Borne.  No  effort  is  made  to  conciliate  the  conquered. 
Their  every  right  and  prejudice  is  treated  with  con- 
tempt. The  Empire  is  divided  into  principalities  and 
smaller  fiefs,  after  the  feudal  system  of  the  West.  From 
their  refuge  in  Nice,  where  some  of  the  Greeks  have  fled, 
they  gaze  with  longing  toward  their  dishonored  city. 

The  Latin  domination,  founded  in  violence  and  existing 
only  in  brute  force,  grows  weaker  as  time  wears  away. 
After    fifty-seven   years    of   bondage  and   exile,  the    last 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


39 


dynasty,  the  Palaiologoi,  seize  the  city  almost  without 
resistance.  Michael  VIII  enters  barefoot  through  the 
Golden  Gate,  and  the  Greeks  repossess  their  own. 

But    the    dismantled    capital    never    could    regain    its 
beauty    nor    the    shattered    empire    its    strength.      The 


Michael  VIII  Palaiologos  and  his  Wife  Theodora 


population  of  Constantinople  had  shrunk  to  one  hun- 
dred thousand  souls.  Provinces  and  islands  were  held 
by  Frank  and  Venetian  families  too  strong  to  be  dis- 
possessed. A  hopeless  endeavor  to  put  together  the 
broken  fragments,  then  a  weary  struggle  for  mere  exist- 
ence, fill  the  last  two  centuries  of  the  Empire.  Impolitic 
negotiations  of  the  emperors  for  union  with  the  Roman 


40  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Church  and  frivolous  expeditions  to  Europe  in  quest  of 
aid  alienate  the  sympathies  of  the  nation,  paralyze  its 
forces  by  division,  and  hasten  on  the  final  overthrow. 
Meanwhile,  the  expanding  Ottoman  power  casts  every 
year  an  ever  heavier  shadow  on  the  Byzantine  throne. 

When  Constantine  XIII  succeeds  in  1449.  prince  and 
people  alike  know  that  without  a  miracle  the  inevitable 
result  cannot  be  long  delayed.  Piteous  prayers  for  aid 
and  appeals  to  chivalry  find  only  a  deaf  ear  in  Italy 
and  France.  The  boundaries  of  the  empire,  shrinking 
on  every  side,  become  coterminous  with  the  city's  walls. 
In  the  succession  of  the  calm,  cool  Mourad  II  by  Prince 
Mohammed,  burning  with  ambition  and  impatient  of 
control,  is  harbinger  that  the  end  is  near.  The  erection 
of  the  fortress  at  Roumeli  Hissar  in  1452  is  itself  a 
menace,  and  begins  the  investment  of  the  city,  grain 
ships  being  no  longer  able  to  bring  supplies  from  the 
Black  Sea. 

Refusing  all  terms  that  imply  submission  or  dishonor, 
though  conscious  that  he  is  marching  to  a  hopeless  fight 
and  an  open  grave,  Constantine  strains  every  nerve  against 
the  gathering  storm.  He  stores  the  city  with  all  the  war 
munitions  and  provisions  he  can  obtain.  He  enrolls  all 
the  fighting  men,  of  whom  a  careful  census  reveals  but 
four  thousand  nine  hundred  and  seventy-three.  The 
probability  of  defeat  and  the  uncertainty  of  pay  repel 
from  his  standard  such  soldiers  as  fight  for  hire,  and  of 
mercenaries  he  can  obtain  but  two  thousand.  All  together 
less  than  seven  thousand  men  are  mustered  to  guard  for- 
tifications more  than  ten  miles  in  length  and  to  withstand 
an  enemy  twenty  times  as  strong. 

Nor  in  that  crucial  hour  was  the  Emperor  sustained  by 
the  sympathy  of  his  people.     The  Palaiologoi,  his  ances- 


CONSTANTINE   XIII,   THE   LAST  BYZANTINE   EMPEROR 


42  CONSTANTINOPLE 

tors,  had  always  dallied  with  Rome.  Even  Michael  Y1II, 
who  won  back  the  Empire  from  the  Latins,  had  strained 
his  eyes  with  longing  for  alliance  with  the  Pope.  Be- 
cause of  his  suspected  apostasy  he  had  been  deemed  an 
outcast  by  his  subjects,  and  after  his  death  had  been  for 
a  time  denied  Christian  burial.  Pilgrimages  to  Italy  and 
partial  abjurations  of  the  Orthodox  creed  on  the  part  of 
subsequent  sovereigns  had  estranged  the  devotion  of  the 
Greek  Church  and  people  to  their  imperial  head. 

In  what  they  deemed  apostasy,  Constantine  XIII  had 
gone  farther  still.  Others  had  assented  when  abroad  ;  but 
he,  under  the  dome  of  Sancta  Sophia,  had  proclaimed  the 
submission  of  the  Eastern  Church  to  the  Roman  See, 
and  had  received  the  sacrament  in  Romish  fashion  from 
the  hand  of  a  Latin  priest.  Centuries  of  religious  aliena- 
tion and  animosity  could  not  be  bridged  by  a  mere  impe- 
rial utterance.  Even  his  temporary  acquiescence  of  the 
lips,  against  which  the  faith  and  the  pride  of  the  nation 
protested,  was  a  political  manoeuvre  in  the  hope  of  secur- 
ing Western  aid  against  the  Moslems,  and  sure  to  be 
repudiated  as  soon  as  the  hour  of  danger  passed.  It  was 
of  all  the  official  acts  of  Constantine  XIII  the  blunder 
the  most  colossal. 

It  costs  to  utter  a  word  in  depreciation  of  that  heroic 
emperor,  who  struggled  so  sublimely  against  desperate 
odds,  and  who  marched  unshrinking  to  a  martyr's  death. 
But  this  abjuration  of  his  national,  ancestral  faith  gained 
him  not  a  soldier  from  abroad,  and  chilled  and  paralyzed 
united  action  at  home.  The  paid  soldiers  of  fortune  from 
the  West  cared  little  what  was  the  creed  of  him  in  whose 
sen  ice  they  struck  their  blows.  The  Italian  mercenaries 
were  regarded  with  aversion,  for  tradition  had  handed 
down   the   horrors   of    the   Latin   Conquest,  and   many  a 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  43 

Greek  believed  he  had  reason  on  his  side  when  declaring 
plainly  that  he  abhorred  the  crimson  hat  of  a  Roman 
cardinal  more  than  the  red  flag  of  Mohammed. 

The  devotion  of  the  Greek  to  his  church  —  a  devotion 
undiminished  to-day  —  is  an  anomaly  in  the  history  of 
Christian  peoples.  Had  Constantine  cast  himself  on  the 
great  national  heart  instead  of  piteously  seeking  the  aid 
of  the  foreigner ;  had  he  clung  unswerving  to  the  great 
national  church,  —  the  result  could  have  been  at  least  no 
more  disastrous  than  it  was,  and  possibly  might  have 
been  reversed.  Without  assistance  from  abroad,  Manuel 
II,  in  1422,  had  beaten  off  the  apparently  resistless  host 
of  Mourad  II,  though  the  besiegers  for  the  first  time  in 
history  were  armed  with  all  the  unknown  terrors  of  gun- 
powder and  cannon.  Thirty  years  later,  why,  without 
assistance  from  abroad,  might  not  Constantine,  a  greater 
than  Manuel,  likewise  have  successfully  resisted  the  son 
of  Mourad  II  ? 

On  April  2,  1453,  the  warlike  Sultan  with  a  hundred 
and  sixty  thousand  soldiers  and  a  horde  of  dervishes  and 
camp  followers  pitched  his  camp  over  against  the  walls. 
A  week  later  his  fleet  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  war- 
ships arrived.  One  week  later  still  the  victorious  passage 
of  five  Christian  galleys  through  the  Ottoman  navy  lighted 
almost  the  only  ray  of  hope  that  flickered  in  the  breasts 
of  the  besieged.  Two  days  more,  and  sixty-eight  of  the 
Sultan's  vessels,  navigating  as  by  enchantment  on  the 
hills,  rode  over  solid  land  into  the  Golden  Horn.  A 
fortnight  later  the  entire  Ottoman  forces,  though  incited 
by  the  presence  and  voice  of  their  impatient  sovereign, 
were  repulsed  with  fearful  loss  in  a  general  attack. 

Then  the  Sultan  devoted  three  weeks  to  preparation  for 
an  assault  that  should  be  resistless.     He  announced  that  on 


44  CONSTANTINOPLE 

the  29th  of  May  the  decisive  attack  should  be  made.  To 
inflame  still  more  the  ardor  of  his  troops,  he  promised 
them  all  the  treasures  of  the  city,  reserving  to  himself 
only  the  walls  and  the  public  buildings.  Day  and  night 
dervishes  patrolled  the  army,  exciting  to  frenzy  the  sensu- 
ous nature  of  the  Moslems.  The  realism  of  their  faith  in 
the  future  world  has  never  been  surpassed.  So,  as  he 
thrilled  to  glowing  pictures  of  wealth  and  beauty  waiting 
in  the  beleaguered  city,  or  of  languishing  houries  stretch- 
ing to  him  their  white  arms  from  heaven,  the  ecstatic 
Moslem  warrior  cared  not  whether  he  lived  or  died,  sure 
of  satiety  either  in  paradise  or  on  earth. 

Many  were  indeed  animated  by  a  loftier  aim.  Between 
Islam  and  Christianity  there  was  eternal  war,  and  Islam 
had  not  always  won.  Now  the  seal  was  to  be  set  on  the 
triumphs  of  their  creed.  The  Prophet  long  before  had 
said :  "  Constantinople  shall  be  subdued.  Happy  the 
prince,  happy  the  army,  that  shall  achieve  its  conquest." 
It  was  their  unutterable  privilege  to  have  part  in  the 
foretold  victory. 

The  Sultan  had  made  no  effort  to  keep  his  plan  of 
action  secret.  Hence  the  date  fixed  for  the  decisive 
attack  was  known  almost  as  speedily  in  the  city  as  in  the 
hostile  camp.  Those  weeks  of  ceaseless  preparation  on 
the  part  of  the  host  outside  must  have  worn  more  fear- 
fully on  the  spirits  of  the  meagre  garrison  than  the  most 
desperate  combat  could  have  done.  Every  soldier  on  the 
rampart  felt  that  each  day's  lull  in  battle  helped  to  forge 
to  a  whiter  heat  the  thunderbolt  that  was  to  fall.  All 
that  man  might  do,  they  and  the  Emperor  did  to  make 
ready  against  the  awful  storm.  The  stern  angels,  that 
lent  them  patience  and  nerved  their  dauntless  courage, 
were  patriotism,  duty,  and  despair.     On  the  28th  of  May, 


HISTORY    OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  45 

when  the  sun  went  down  in  glory  beyond  the  purpling 
western  hills,  many  a  hero  gazed  on  it  wistfully  and  long, 
realizing  he  never  should  look  forth  again  upon  its  setting 
splendor. 

The  Emperor  sought  to  die,  not  only  as  a  soldier  with  his 
harness  on,  but  as  became  a  Christian  emperor.  He  at- 
tended the  midnight  mass  in  Sancta  Sophia,  and  received 
the  sacrament.  Then  slowly  he  rode  back  across  the  city 
to  the  Palace  of  Blachernai.  After  a  brief  attempt  at 
rest,  he  visited  and  cheered  the  sentinels  in  the  long  cir- 
cuit of  the  land  walls.  Each  chieftain  and  soldier  he 
found  at  his  appointed  place,  intrepid  and  resolved.  As 
they  looked  each  other  in  the  eye,  little  reference  to  pos- 
sible victory  fell  from  the  Emperor's  lips.  Nor  was  the 
answering  shout  more  exultant,  though  ecrually  sublime. 
"  The  soldiers  wept,  and  with  a  groan  replied,  '  We  will 
die  for  the  faith  of  Christ  and  for  our  country.'  ' 

Nor  was  this  answer  a  mere  idle  boast.  The  memory 
of  the  Emperor,  because  of  his  exalted  rank  and  larger 
responsibilities,  towers  above  their  humbler  fame.  It  was 
fitting  on  the  morrow  that  the  foreign  mercenaries,  hav- 
ing all  save  one  dishonored  leader  striven  their  best, 
should  survive  defeat,  and  be  ready  for  other  fields.  But 
most  of  the  Greek  captains  were  to  prove  that  the  old 
Grecian  spirit  was  not  dead,  and  were  themselves  to  fall 
like  their  sovereign. 

Mohammed  was  as  sleepless,  active,  and  determined. 
His  promises  had  been  so  vast  that  many  a  Moslem 
doubted  whether  the  Sultan  once  victorious  might  not  for- 
get  his  word.  In  his  charge  to  his  troops  before  the  onset, 
he  confirmed  all  he  had  hitherto  said  of  either  threat  or 
promise,  and  closed  by  a  strange  and  solemn  oath.  He 
swore   it  by  the   eternity  of  God,  by  the  four  thousand 


4(3  CONSTANTINOPLE 

prophets,  by  the  soul  of  his  father  Mourad  II,  by  the 
lives  of  his  children,  and  by  his  scimitar.  The  camp  of 
the  three  hundred  thousand  resounded  with  one  appalling 
shout.  Dervishes  and  soldiers  tore  down  their  tents  and, 
setting  them  on  fire,  kindled  one  mighty  conflagration 
from  the  Marmora  to  the  Golden  Horn,  They  said: 
"  This  rubbish  is  useless  now.  To-morrow  we  sleep  in 
Constantinople." 

In  the  gray  dusk  before  the  breaking  dawn,  Constant  ine 
took  his  stand  at  the  gate  of  Saint  Romanos  with  Giustin- 
iani,  the  chief  of  the  Italian  mercenaries,  at  his  side.  With 
the  silence  and  the  mercilessness  of  doom,  the  Ottomans 
pressed  forward.  At  the  brink  of  the  moat  they  could 
not  falter.  Thousands  from  behind  forced  them  on,  and 
it  was  bridged  with  the  piled  up  forms  of  the  writhing 
living  and  of  the  dead.  "  There,"  says  the  historian 
Phranzes,  who  was  fighting  at  the  wall,  tk  the  wretches 
went  down  alive  to  hell."  Cannon  battered  breaches  in 
the  walls  which  had  withstood  the  shock  of  war  a  thou- 
sand years. 

Yet  during  two  mortal  hours  the  garrison  did  not 
waver  at  any  point,  and  held  then  multitudinous  ene- 
mies at  bay.  But  so  far  they  were  contending  with  the 
worthless  rabble,  whose  lives  the  Sultan  disdained,  and 
whom  he  had  first  precipitated  to  the  attack.  At  last 
he  unleashed  his  fifteen  thousand  janissaries,  the  best 
drilled,  the  bravest,  the  most  remorseless  soldiers  then 
in  the  world.  The  unequal  contest  could  not  long  con- 
tinue. Giustiniani,  wounded  in  the  wrist,  forsook  his 
post,  despite  the  prayers  of  the  Emperor  ;  and,  sneering 
at  the  man  he  deserted,  escaped  to  Galata  to  hide  his 
shame.  The  hireling  fled  because  he  was  a  hireling : 
the  Emperor,  even  after  his  friends  lay  dead  around  him 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  47 

and  the  Moslem  host  was  pressing  in  on  every  side, 
fought  on  alone. 

Reverent  myths  and  legends  describe  the  manner  of  his 
death,  and  transmit  the  last  utterances  of  his  lips.  In  his 
agony  he  is  said  to  have  moaned,  "  Is  there  no  Christian 
hand  to  take  my  life  ?  "  and  then  to  have  cried  aloud 
above  the  noise  of  battle,  "  I  would  rather  die  than  live." 
In  the  final  melee  with  five  janissaries,  it  is  stated  that 
he  slew  three,  but  that  the  scimitar  of  the  fourth  slashed 
away  half  of  the  eagle  face  and  brought  him  to  his  knees, 
while  the  fifth  pierced  him  through  from  behind. 

When  the  battle  was  won,  a  soldier  brought  his  captain 
a  pair  of  crimson  shoes  wrought  Avith  golden  eagles.  In 
the  search  a  form  so  mutilated  that  a  mother  could  not 
have  recognized  her  child,  was  found  where  the  heap  of 
slain  was  highest.  Ottoman  credulity  identified  these 
remains  as  those  of  Constantine,  and  for  three  days  ex- 
posed its  dissevered  head  on  the  statue  of  Justinian  in  the 
Augustaeum.  To  the  mangled  trunk  Mohammed  gave  a 
pompous  funeral  with  the  ceremonial  befitting  a  Byzantine 
Emperor.  The  head,  stuffed  with  straw,  was  promenaded 
through  the  chief  towns  of  the  Ottoman  dominions  as  the 
most  convincing  proof  that  the  capital  had  fallen. 

To-day,  in  the  quarter  of  Abou  Vefa  in  Stamboul,  may 
be  seen  a  lowly,  nameless  grave  which  the  humble  Greeks 
revere  as  that  of  Constantine.  Timid  devotion  lias  strewn 
around  it  a  few  rustic  ornaments.  Candles  were  kept 
burning  night  and  day  at  its  side.  Till  eight  years  ago 
it  was  frequented,  though  secretly,  as  a  place  of  prayer. 
Then  the  Ottoman  Government  interposed  with  severe 
penalties,  and  it  has  since  been  almost  deserted.  All  this 
is  but  in  keeping  with  the  tales  which  delight  the  credu- 
lous or  devout.     History  knows  only  that  the  pile  of  slain 


48 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


Mohammed  II  the  Conqueror 


about  him  was  the  Emperor's  funeral  pyre,  and  that  the 
Emperor  and  Empire  have  transmuted  the  soil  about  the 

Gate  of  Saint  Roma- 
nos,  where  they  died  to- 
gether, into  holy  ground. 
At  noon  Sultan  Mo- 
hammed II,  the  Con- 
queror, made  his  tri- 
umphal entry,  and 
proceeded  slowly 
through  the  city  by 
the  later  Triumphal 
Way  to  Sancta  Sophia. 
The  cymbals  and  gongs 
resounded  without  ces- 
sation along  the  route ; 
their  every  note  was  proclamation  that  the  Second  Epoch 
of  Constantinople  had  ended,  and  that  the  Third  Epoch 
was  begun. 

THE    THIRD   EPOCH 

If  the  transition  of  Byzantium  to  the  Second  Epoch  had 
been  enormous,  that  of  Constantinople  to  the  Third  Avas 
greater  still.  The  moment  the  last  Caesar's  fall  left  her 
without  an  empire  and  head,  she  became  the  capital  of  the 
Sultans.  Even  in  the  new  name  by  which  hereafter  she 
was  commonly  to  be  called  —  in  the  name  Stamboul 1  or 

1  One  derivation  often  given  for  Stamboul  is  from  els  rfjv  noXiv  (ees  teen 
poleen),  "to  the  city."  It  is  supposed  that  the  Ottomans  often  overheard 
this  phrase  on  the  lips  of  the  Greeks,  and  that  from  it  they  formed  the  word 
Stamboul.  This  derivation  is  untenable.  The  Ottomans  often  retained 
foreign  names  of  places  they  had  captured.  In  case  the  name  was  long, 
they  dropped  the  first  syllable,  and  contracted  or  abridged  the  last  syllables. 
Thus  from  Thessalonica  they  made  Selanik;  from  Constantinople,  Stamboul. 


HISTORY   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  49 

Istamboul,  fashioned  in  Turkish  derivation  from  Constan- 
tinople —  lingered  the  tale  of  her  lofty  origin.  Another 
name,  Constantinieh,  the  most  frequent  on  Turkish  coins 
and  of  constant  use  among  Arabs,  Persians,  and  Ottomans, 
preserved  the  memory  of  her  emperors.  Save  in  these 
two  respects,  —  municipal  rank  and  source  of  name,  —  all 
else  was  absolutely  changed,  not  only  in  outward  form, 
but  in  individual  essence. 

The  Romans  and  the  Greeks  had  been  of  kindred  blood, 
tracing  their  languages  to  a  cognate  source.  In  the  child- 
hood of  their  race  they  had  worshipped  at  the  altars  of 
common  pagan  gods,  and  in  their  fuller  manhood  together 
abjured  paganism  for  a  higher  and  a  diviner  faith.  Their 
civilization  had  flowed  from  neighboring  fountains,  whose 
waters  mingled  later  in  a  common  stream.  Eventually 
at  Constantinople  the  Roman  element  had  disappeared, 
had  been  absorbed,  costume,  language,  contour  of  brow, 
color  of  hair  and  eye,  tint  of  skin,  natural  disposition 
even,  into  the  entity  of  the  Greeks.  Yet  it  was  not  all  for- 
gotten, for  the  name  survived  in  the  appellation  of  their 
language,  Romaic,  the  mediaeval  Greek,  and  in  the  title  by 
which  they  call  themselves  even  to-day,  the  Romaioi. 

But  between  the  Ottomans  and  the  Greeks  there  was 
not  a  link  in  common  save  a  common  humanity.  The 
host  that  appalled  the  ravished  city  with  its  frenetic 
shouts  had  come  in  a  slow  march  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  from  beyond  the  Caspian,  beyond  the  Great 
Salt  Desert,  from  the  wide  wastes  of  Khorassan.  The 
robes  they  wore,  the  steeds  they  bestrode,  the  arms  they 
used  so  well,  told  of  the  distant  East.  The  palaces  they 
summoned  into  existence  for  sultan  and  pasha,  in  struc- 
ture and  appearance  recalled  the  patriarchal  tent  and  the 
nomad  life  of  the  plain.     The  tongue  they  spoke  was  of 


50  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Turanian  origin,  not  of  Indo-European  stock.  The  faith 
they  cherished,  and  for  which  with  exultant  devotion  they 
rejoiced  to  die,  breathed  in  its  every  accent  the  spirit  of 
Arabia.  Their  entire  civilization,  highly  developed  and 
brilliant  though  it  was,  in  genius,  spirit,  and  detail  stood  in 
contrast  and  contradiction  to  the  civilization  of  the  West. 

No  less  foreign  was  their  theory  of  government  and  of 
the  State.  The  Sultan  towered  above  all  humanity,  abso- 
lute, irresponsible,  who  could  commit  no  wrong  and  whose 
wrong  was  right  because  he  willed  it ;  awful  in  his  lone- 
liness, representative  only  of  himself  and  God.  The 
Shadow  of  God  upon  Earth  was  his  invariable  title.  The 
State  was  but  territorial  extent,  on  which  human  beings 
and  brute  creatures  lived,  land  and  life  being  alike  the 
absolute  ruler's  absolute  property,  all  formed  to  serve  his 
pleasure  and  do  his  unquestioned  will.  Nor  could  a 
conquered  race  dwell  as  equals  with  the  new  Moslem 
inhabitants,  in  equal  subjection  to  a  common  imperial 
master.  The  fiat  of  Islam  left  only  social  and  political 
inferiority  as  the  portion  of  the  vanquished  Christians. 

Measureless  as  the  abyss  between  the  Koran  and  the 
Bible,  Islam  and  Christianity,  Mohammed  the  Prophet 
and  Christ  the  Saviour,  was  the  gulf  between  the  Ottoman 
and  the  Greek.  Four  hundred  years  they  have  dwelt  side 
by  side  in  the  same  city  limits,  but  the  gulf  has  never 
been  bridged,  and  is  no  less  deep  and  wide. 

Three  days  the  sack  continued.  Every  soldier  and 
camp  follower  worked  his  savage  will  without  hindrance 
or  control.  Nor  did  the  revelry  of  the  Padishah  differ 
greatly  from  that  of  the  meanest  soldier.  Then  it  was 
that  the  Grand  Duke  Notaras,  who  had  lived  the  life  of  a 
coward  or  traitor,  died  the  death  of  a  hero  and  martyr. 

After  three  clays,  the  Sultan  called  his  satiated  troops 


.v> 


COXSTAXTIXOPLE 


to  order.  To  repeople  the  devastated,  depopulated  city- 
was  his  first  concern.  For  this  he  sought  to  appease  the 
terror  of  the  vanquished,  to  whom  safety  of  life  and  free- 
dom of  worship  were  guaranteed.  The  Patriarch  having 
withdrawn  to  Mount  Athos  before  the  siege,  the  surviving 
Bishops  were  ordered  to  elect  a  successor.  The  new 
Patriarch  he  received  with  distinguished  honor,  presented 
him  with  a  robe  and  staff,  assured  him  of  his  protection 
and  favor,  and  sent  him  with  a  splendid  escort  to  the 
patriarchal  residence.  Most  of  the  churches  between  the 
Golden  Horn  and  the  Gate  of  Aclrianople  were  left  to  the 
Christians ;  eight  the  Sultan  converted  into  moscpies. 

To  the  plain  red  cloth  of  the  Ottoman  standard  were 
added  the  crescent  and  star,  the  symbol  of  old  Byzantium, 
still  seen  on  the  Ottoman  flag.  The  enormous  Eski  Serai', 
or  Old  Palace,  in  the  heart  of  Stamboul,  even  more  than 
the  Mosque  of  Sultan  Mohammed,  or  Yeni  Serai,  the  New 
Palace,  vindicated  the  Sultan's  claim  to  architectural  dis- 
tinction. Twenty-eight  years  he  survived  his  conquest; 
then  dying,  he  left  behind  him  the  reputation  of  a  mighty, 
always  fierce,  and  often  cruel  conqueror,  of  a  sagacious 
legislator  and  statesman,  and  of  an  enlightened  lover  of 
learning. 

His  immediate  successors  were  warriors  like  himself,  to 
whom  their  capital  was,  above  all,  headquarters  for  an  army 
and  a  base  of  military  operations,  always  resounding  with 
preparations  for  war,  or  with  the  triumphal  return  of 
victorious  troops.  Almost  every  Ottoman  was  a  soldier, 
priest,  or  official.  By  the  sword  the  capital  had  been 
won ;  by  the  sword  its  possession  was  to  be  maintained. 
The  Christian  population,  forbidden  to  bear  arms  or  hold 
any  public  office,  not  allowed  to  give  testimony  in  the 
courts,  yet  with  life,  occupation,  and  property  protected  to 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


53 


a  certain  degree,  exercised  the  various  handicrafts  or  were 
the  merchants  and  bankers  of  the  city.  The  tribute  in 
children,  torn  from  non-Moslem  parents,  to  be  fashioned 
into  janissaries,  —  the  most  merciless  and  inhuman  extor- 
tion ever  wrung  from  a  conquered  people,  —  continued 
over  two  hundred  years. 

Under  Sultan  Soulei'man  I,  the  Magnificent,  the  Sub- 
lime, the  Empire  at- 
tained its  apogee 
of  glory  and  began 
its  decline.  Thir- 
teen times  he 
marched  through 
the  city  gates  at 
the  head  of  an 
army  on  some  dis- 
tant campaign;  thir- 
teen times  he  re- 
turned in  triumph. 
In  architectural 
achievements  and 
in  promulgation  of 
a  code  he  emulated 
Justinian  the  Great. 
Dying  in  the  camp 
at  the  siege  of  Szi- 
geth,  he  is  inscribed 
in  the  national  re- 
cords as  a  martyr. 

In      subsequent 
years  the  sovereign 

concerned  himself  less  with  military  affairs  and  dwelt  in 
greater  seclusion.     Some,  indeed,  like  Mourad  IV,  fought 


Sultan  Soulei'man  I  the  Magnificent 


54 


COXSTAXTrXOPLE 


in  the  van  of  armies,  which  they  commanded  in  person, 
and  won  splendid   victories.     But  the  Ottomans  of  later 


Tomb  of  Souleiman  I  the  Magnificent 


times  did  not  wish  that  the  person  of  the  Sultan  should 
be  exposed  to  the  dangers  of  the  field.  Under  Sultan 
Moustapha  III,  Constantinople  saw  the  beginning  of  those 


HISTORY   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


bo 


efforts  after   municipal  and  national  reform,  which,  like 
his  successors,  Abcl-ul    Hamid  I,  and  Selim  III,  he  was 


Mahmoud  IT  the  Great 


utterly  unable   to   accomplish.     Those    same    efforts    she 
saw  resumed  on  a  vaster  scale,  with  a  larger  measure  of 


56  COXSTAXTIXOPLE 

success,  by  the  inflexible  Sultan  Mahmoud  II  the  Great. 
In  these  later  years  Constantinople  has  been  brought  into 
closer  connection  with  the  Western  world,  and  in  many 
ways  manifests  the  influence  of  its  spirit.  The  Oriental 
features  have  grown  less  and  less,  while  it  has  conformed 
more  and  more  to  the  type  of  a  European  city.  In  this, 
as  in  all  else  affecting  the  municipal  life,  is  felt  and  shown 
the  influence  of  the  later  sultans. 

The  history  of  a  metropolis  under  Mussulman  govern- 
ment is  hardly  anything  more  than  reflection  of  the 
character  and  condition  of  the  sovereign.  It  is  a  mirror 
on  the  dead  level  of  whose  placid  face  appears  no  life 
or  emotion  of  its  own,  and  yet  which  reproduces  in  faith- 
ful delineation  the  whole  existence,  even  the  momentary 
passion,  the  slightest  tremor,  the  faintest  breath  of  its 
ruler.  Its  individuality  is  lost  and  merged  in  his  absorb- 
ing being.  So  has  it  been  with  Constantinople  under 
her  twenty-seven  sultans.  In  each  reign  what  the  Sul- 
tan was,  the  city  was.  So  the  history  of  the  Ottoman 
Dynasty,  a  drama,  a  romance,  often  a  tragedy,  sometimes 
a  poem,  has  been  the  history  of  Stamboul.  Rebellion, 
earthquake,  fire,  pestilence,  have  indeed  many  times 
racked  the  surface  of  her  ground,  laid  low  her  mosques 
and  dwellings,  and  filled  the  trenches  with  her  dead. 
Yet  these  phenomena  of  man  or  nature  have  been  re- 
garded by  the  Ottomans  as  intimately  associated  with 
the  contemporary  reign,  half  caused  by  it,  half  indicative 
of  some  phase  in  it,  or  of  its  general  character.  Thus 
the  fearful  famine  and  pest  that  decimated  the  city  under 
Sultan  Mourad  III  were  considered  the  consequence  of  his 
insatiable  appetite  and  passion  ;  the  more  than  one  hun- 
dred frightful  conflagrations  that  swept  Stamboul  in  the 
reign  of  Sultan  Achmet  III,  as  direct  result  of  his  inefli- 


HISTORY  OF   CONSTANTINOPLE 


57 


ciency  and  weakness ;  the  train  of  horrors  in  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century  as  caused  by  the  sensuous  ease 
and  unnatural  instincts  of  Sultan  Mohammed  IV. 

If  the  sultans  were  half-shadowy  phantoms,  outlined 
in  natural  convulsion  and  storm,  they  were  enthralled  as 
lovers  and  men  in  the  mysterious  recesses  of  the  seraglio. 


Catafalque  of  Roxelaxa 


The  bewildering  procession  of  peerless  beauty,  never  wan- 
ing, always  renewed  in  immortal  youth,  often  controlled 
the  arm  that  swayed  the  state.  In  the  turbehs  of  Stam- 
boul,  each  under  her  mantle  of  sacred  green,  all  those 
dazzling  ladies  sleep :  Goulbahar,  who  nursed  beside  the 
Conqueror  ambitious  aspirations  equal  to  his  own ;  Haphsa, 
whose  soft  eye  could  melt  the  ferocious  mood  of  Sultan 


58  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Selim  I;  Roxelana,  cruel  but  divinely  fair,  fit  consort  of 
the  Magnificent ;  Safiveh,  ever  dreaming  of  lier  native 
Venice,  while  with  silken  touch  soothing  the  fierce 
Mourad  III ;  Besslemeh,  despotic  lady  of  a  later  day, 
wondrous  in  her  charms;  Machpeiker  the  moon-faced; 
Besma  the  pious ;  Khandann  the  wonderful ;  Tarkhann 
the  pure;  Nachshedil  the  heavenly;  Circassian,  Georgian, 
Russian,  French,  Italian,  Greek ;  each  the  consummation 
of  her  race  in  perfect  beauty,  each  now  dust  and  ashes, 
guarded  near  other  dust  and  ashes  which  was  once  the 
form  of  her  imperial  lord. 

In  those  silent  tombs  of  sultan  and  sultana,  scattered 
along  the  crested  hills  of  Stamboul,  the  real  history  of 
the  Third  Epoch  in  the  life  of  the  city  is  to  be  sought. 


Ill 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   OTTOMANS 


OULEIMAN  SHAH,  a  Turkish  chieftain, 
was  drowned  in  the  Euphrates  in  1231, 
when  returning  to  his  native  country, 
Khorassan.  His  host  of  fifty  thousand 
men  divided-:  Four  hundred  families 
wandered  westward  with  his  fourth 
son,  Ertogroul  Shah,  into  Asia  Minor, 
almost  all  of  which,  save  a  few  Byzan- 
tine possessions  in  the  west  and  the 
tiny  empire  of  Trebizond  in  the  northeast,  was  included 
in  the  Seldjouk  empire  of  Roum.  In  their  aimless  course 
one  day  they  came  upon  a  plain  where  two  armies  were 
fighting.  Ertogroul  Shah  hastily  and  chivalrously  resolved 
to  aid  the  weaker  party,  and  by  his  sudden  and  unexpected 
assistance  changed  the  result  of  the  contest.  After  the 
battle,  he  found  he  had  rescued  from  defeat  the  Seldjouk 
Sultan  Aiaeddin  I  himself.  The  grateful  monarch  be- 
stowed on  him,  by  a  sort  of  feudal  tenure,  the  pleasant 
highlands  of  Karadja  Dagh,  Tourmanidj,  and  Ermeni,  and 
the  pasture  land  of  Saegund  on  the  famous  river  Sanga- 
rius.  This  territory,  only  a  few  miles  in  circuit,  close  to 
the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Bithynian  Olympus,  was  the 
nucleus  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  There  Ertogroul  Shah 
and  his  followers,  hitherto  pagan,  were  soon  converted  to 
Islam,  and  there  his  son  Osman  was  born. 


60 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


9 


Ertogroul,  "  the  man  of  the  upright  heart,"  was  a  plain 
and  simple  shepherd,  apparently  destitute  of  ambition.  The 
territory  he  occupied  was  ample  to  supply  the  necessities 
of  his  followers  and  of  their  flocks,  and  he  was  content. 
Ever  faithful  with  sword  and  counsels  to  the  Seldjouk 
sultans,  he  received  many  tokens  of  their  friendship  and 
favor,  and  his  possessions  constantly  increased. 

Osman  was  of  a  more  energetic  and  restless  nature. 
Early  he  felt  a  presentiment  of  the  future  greatness  of 

his  house.  Not  far 
from  his  father's  tent 
lived  the  sheik  Edebali, 
who  had  come  from 
Adana  to  instruct  the 
newly  converted  tribe 
in  the  principles  of  the 
faith.  Malkatoun, 
Delight  to  the  Eyes, 
the  daughter  of  the 
\  |    I   i  sheik,  speedily  became 

a  s  famous  for  her  beauty 
as  was  her  father  for 
his  piety  and  learning. 
Gham  sultax-Osman  By    accident,    Osman, 

then  a  young  man  of 
twenty-four,  one  day  obtained  a  glimpse  of  her  unveiled 
face,  and  from  that  day  was  able  to  think  only  of 
Malkatoun.  Edebali,  from  whom  Osman  at  once  sought 
her  hand,  sternly  refused  his  consent. 

Though  the  father  was  obdurate,  the  lover  was  constant 
and  patient ;  and  patience,  according  to  the  Arab  proverb, 
is  the  price  of  all  felicity.  Two  years  passed,  during  which 
Osman  was  unable  to  look  upon  the  jealously  guarded 


%  I 


THE  RISE   OF  THE   OTTOMANS  61 

maiden.  Meanwhile,  he  often  visited  the  sheik  for  reli- 
gions instruction,  and  with  the  thought  of  perhaps  meet- 
ing his  daughter.  One  night,  when  discouraged  and 
almost  hopeless,  he  had  the  following  dream.  A  star 
seemed  to  issue  from  Edebali,  and  hide  itself  in  the 
breast  of  Osman.  Suddenly  a  tree  grew  from  the  ground 
before  him,  and  rapidly  stretched  its  branches  over  the 
three  continents  of  Asia,  Europe,  and  Africa.  The  four 
mountain  ranges  of  the  Caucasus,  the  Taurus,  the  Balkans, 
and  the  Atlas,  rose  to  support  the  overladen  branches  of 
the  tree.  Down  the  slopes  of  these  mountains  flowed  the 
four  rivers,  —  the  Tigris,  the  Euphrates,  the  Danube,  and 
the  Nile.  Prodigious  forests  and  boundless  harvest  fields 
clothed  the  heights  and  spread  along  the  streams.  From 
the  latter,  ships  sailed  to  the  four  seas,  —  the  Euxine,  the 
iEgean,  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  Cities 
with  mosques  dotted  the  wide  expanse,  and  from  every 
direction  muezzins  with  melodious  voices  called  to  prayer. 
Suddenly  the  entire  scene  swept  toward  Constantinople, 
which  glittered  between  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Marmora, 
like  a  jewel  upon  a  ring.  Just  as  Osman  was  about  to 
grasp  the  ring  and  place  it  on  the  finger  of  Malkatoun, 
he  awoke.  Dreams  have  always  been  esteemed  sacred  in 
the  East.  Edebali  did  not  dare  longer  oppose  what  he 
judged  the  manifest  will  of  heaven :  he  gave  his  consent. 
Soon  afterwards  Osman  and  Malkatoun  were  married. 

In  the  veins  of  every  Ottoman  sultan  since  has  flowed 
in  equal  measure  the  blood  of  Osman  and  of  the  beautiful 
Syrian  maiden.  Thus  early,  with  dreams  of  love  in  the 
breast  of  the  youthful  hero,  —  then  only  the  heir  of  the 
chieftain  of  a  paltry  nomad  tribe,  —  was  blended  aspira- 
tion for  that  city  whose  conquest  was  in  his  fired  imagi- 
nation to  bestow  upon  his  race  the  mastery  of  the  wrorld. 


02  CONSTANTINOPLE 

But  the  dream  did  not  receive  its  political  fulfilment  for 
one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  years. 

Ertoeroul  died  in  1288.  His  son  was  at  once  invested 
with  the  title  of  bey,  or  emir,  was  appointed  chief  com- 
mander of  the  Seldjouk  Sultan's  forces,  and  was  granted 
the  right  of  coining  money  and  of  having  his  name  pro- 
nounced in  the  solemn  Friday  prayer. 

Twelve  years  later  a  general  insurrection  of  the  other 
emirs  and  an  invasion  by  a  Mongol  horde  destroyed  the 
power  of  the  Seldjouks.  The  last  sovereign,  Alaeddin  III, 
sought  refuge  at  the  court  of  AndronikosII  Palaiologos, 
and  died  at  Constantinople.  From  the  debris  of  his  shat- 
tered empire  arose  several  aggressive  states  and  many 
principalities  of  minor  importance.  The  ten  chief  were : 
Karamania,  including  Cilicia,  Cappadocia,  and  southeast 
Phrygia,  with  the  capital  Iconium ;  Kastamouni,  compris- 
ing part  of  Paphlagonia  and  Pontus ;  Kermian  in  Phrygia ; 
Tekieh  in  Pamphylia ;  Hamid  in  Pisidia ;  Mentesche  in 
Caria  and  Lycia ;  A'idin  in  Ionia ;  Sourkhan  in  Lydia ; 
Kerasi  in  Mysia,  with  its  capital  Pergamus ;  and  the 
estates  of  Osman,  which  embraced  almost  all  Bithynia 
and  parts  of  Phrygia  and  Galatia,  with  the  upper  valleys 
of  the  Sanararius. 

Osman,  though  by  no  means  the  most  powerful  in  this 
group  of  independent  princes,  seemed  the  natural  successor 
of  Alaeddin,  to  whom  he  had  been  almost  an  adopted  son. 
Proclaimed  Ali  Othman  Padishahi,  Emperor  of  the  family 
of  Osman,  in  the  mosque  of  Karadja,  he  chose  Yeni  Shehr, 
a  city  on  the  main  road  between  Brousa  and  Nice,  as  the 
first  capital  of  the  nation,  called  Osmanli,  or  Ottoman,  after 
his  name.  The  consecration  of  a  mosque  was  his  first  act 
after  his  proclamation.  During  twenty-five  years  lie  ex- 
tended and   consolidated   his  conquests,  and  was   equally 


THE  RISE   OF  THE   OTTOMANS  63 

admirable  as  sovereign  and  statesman,  being  brave, 
austere,   generous,   truthful,   and  just. 

On  his  death-bed  he  bequeathed  the  throne  to  his 
second  and  warlike  son  Orkhan,  excluding  the  elder-born 
Alaeddin  from  the  succession.  "  Be  support  of  the  faith 
and  protector  of  learning,"  were  among  his  last  words 
to  Orkhan.  Alaeddin,  preferring  a  life  of  seclusion  and 
study,  long  refused  all  share  in  the  family  wealth  and 
power,  but  finally  was  persuaded  by  his  brother  to  assist 
him  with  his  remarkable  administrative  talents,  and  to 
become  the  first  Ottoman  Grand  Vizir.  Together  they 
removed  the  capital  to  Brousa,  which  had  just  been 
conquered. 

Alaeddin  elaborated  the  first  Ottoman  Code,  founded 
the  corps  of  the  janissaries,  and  organized  a  permanent 
cavalry  called  sipahis.  The  army  had  hitherto  consisted 
of  irregular  troops  who  served  without  pay.  Red  was 
adopted  as  the  national  color,  and  a  red  flag  without  de- 
vice of  any  sort  was  made  the  Ottoman  standard.  Also 
money  was  coined,  bearing  on  one  side  the  toughra,  or 
imperial  seal,  and  on  the  other  a  verse  from  the  Koran. 
The  right  of  coinage,  possessed  during  thirty-one  years, 
had  not  been  previously  exercised. 

While  Alaeddin  organized,  Orkhan  conquered.  Nico- 
media  was  speedily  captured,  and  Nice,  the  last  bulwark 
of  the  Byzantine  Empire  in  Asia  Minor,  surrendered  after 
a  siege  of  two  years.  So  far  the  Ottoman  conquest  had 
been  mainly  at  the  expense  of  the  Greeks.  Soon  the  ter- 
ritories of  the  Emir  of  Kerasi  were  annexed,  and  the  task 
seemed  begun  of  reuniting  the  dismembered  Seldjouk 
Empire. 

Twenty  years  of  peaceful  development  followed.  Then 
Souleiman  Pasha,  oldest  son  of  Sultan  Orkhan,  who  on 


64 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


the  death  of  his  uncle,  Alaeddin  Pasha,  had  become  Grand 
Vizir,  crossed  the  Dardanelles  on  two  rafts  with  sixty  men, 
surprised  the  city  of  Tzyinpe,  —  the  earliest  Ottoman  con- 
quest in  Europe,  —  and  brought  back  a  sufficient  number 
of  boats  to  convey  across  his  army  of  three  thousand  men. 
They  marched  at  once  against  Gallipoli,  "  the  key  of  Con- 
stantinople;"   meanwhile   an   earthquake    threw   down  a 


Gallipoli 


large  portion  of  the  walls,  and  paralyzed  the  inhabitants 
with  terror.  The  exultant  Ottomans  entered  through  the 
breach,  believing  Allah  himself  had  prepared  the  way. 
That  city  became  their  chief  naval  station,  and  so  contin- 
ued for  many  years,  even  after  the  capture  of  Constanti- 
nople. Soule'iman  Pasha  being  killed  by  a  fall  from  his 
horse.  Sultan  Orkhan  died  of  grief  the  following  year,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  second  son.  Sultan  Mourad  I. 


THE  RISE    OF   THE    OTTOMANS 


65 


Sultan  Mourad  captured  Aclrianople,  making  it  his  capi- 
tal five  years  later.  Still  that  city  was  always  regarded 
as  mainly  a  camp  of  imperial  bivouac.  The  heart  of  the 
Ottomans  clung  to  Brousa.  It  was  the  centre  of  their 
mosques  and  schools ;  till  the  capture  of  Constantinople, 
it  was  the  mausoleum  of  the  imperial  family.  The  first 
six  Sultans  with  then  households  and  twenty-six  Ottoman 
princes  lie  buried  there.  The  most  illustrious  vizirs  and 
"  more  than  five  hundred  pashas,  theologians,   teachers, 


Tombs  of  Sultans  Orkhan  and  Osman  at  Brousa 


and  poets  there  sleep  their  last  sleep  around  their  first 
Padishahs." 

In  the  space  of  half  a  century  the  emirs  of  Kermian, 
Hamid,  Mentesche,  Tekieh,  Aidin,  Saroukhan,  and  Kara- 
mania  were  successively  subdued,  and  those  provinces 
added  to  the  growing  empire.  When  Kastamouni  was 
conquered,  all  the  possessions  of  the  Seldjouk  Sultans 
were  reunited  under  the  sway  of  Sultan  Bayezid  I. 

The  Seldjouks,  as  fast  as  they  were  conquered,  fused 
with  the  Ottomans.  So  did  vast  numbers  of  Christians, 
who  apostatized  in  the  subjected  European  states,  and  be- 
came Moslems.  No  distinction  was  made  between  the 
born  Moslem  and  the  convert.    All  —  the  original  Ottoman, 

VOL.  I.  —  5 


66  CONSTANTINOPLE 

the  Seldjouk,  the  convert  from  Judaism  or  Christianity  — 
were  considered  equally  Ottoman.  This  early,  constant 
accretion  was  a  most  important  factor  in  the  growth  and 
development  of  the  nation.  The  majority  of  the  Grand 
Vizirs  from  1359  to  1895  have  been  of  Christian  or  Jewish 
origin. 

At  the  time  when  Adrianople  was  captured,  the  Byzan- 
tine Empire  comprised  hardly  more  than  the  territory 
south  of  the  Balkans  and  east  of  the  Strymon.  Broken 
into  fragments  by  the  infamous  Fourth  Crusade,  the 
Byzantine  Empire,  though  restored  to  Constantinople  in 
1261,  had  never  been  able  to  regain  all  or  even  most  of 
her  former  possessions.  The  larger  part  of  Greece  and 
the  Greek  islands  were  still  held  by  French  and  Venetian 
families.  West  of  the  Strymon  and  south  of  the  Danube 
were  the  independent  States  of  Servia,  Bosnia,  Bulgaria, 
and  Albania.  North  of  the  Danube  stretched  the  plains 
of  Wallachia  and,  farther  north,  of  Hungary.  Into  those 
countries  and  the  still  existing  Byzantine  Empire,  the 
Ottoman  invasion  pierced  like  a  wedge. 

The  prowess  and  skill  of  the  invaders  were  aided  by 
the  strife  and  internecine  struggles  of  those  warring  states. 
Each  was  ready  to  assist  the  Ottomans  agamst  the  other, 
and  all  to  combine  with  the  Ottomans  agamst  Constanti- 
nople. Servia  was  conquered  at  the  battle  of  Kossova, 
where  Sultan  Mourad  I  was  slain.  He  was  succeeded  by 
his  oldest  son,  Sultan  Bayezid  I,  surnamed  Ilderim  the 
Thunderbolt.  Bulgaria,  already  partially  subdued,  was 
definitely  annexed  in  1394,  and  the  Bulgarian  royal  fam- 
ily renounced  Christianity  for  Islam. 

Europe  was  panic-stricken  at  these  progressive  victories, 
and  Pope  Boniface  IX  preached  a  crusade.  Sixty  thousand 
Bohemians,  French,  Germans,  Hungarians,  and  Knights 


THE  RISE    OF   THE    OTTOMANS 


67 


of  Saint  John  of  Jerusalem,  led  by  Sigismond,  King  of 
Hungary,  by  the  Count  of  Nevers,  who  was  heir  to  the 
Duchy  of  Burgundy,  by  the  Constable  of  France,  and  the 
highest  nobles  of  Western  Europe,  were  utterly  crushed  at 
the  battle  of  Nicopolis.  Nearly  all  the  chiefs  were  slain 
or  taken  prisoners,  and  ten  thousand  soldiers  were  cap- 
tured. Sigismond,  unable  to  return  to  Hungary,  escaped 
in  a  small  boat  down  the  Danube  and  by  the  Black  Sea  to 
Constantinople.     An  unbroken  series  of  victories  hi  Asia 


¥'- 


.^JMCM 


Yeshil  D.jami,  the  Green  Mosque  of  Mohammed  I  at  Brousa 


and  Europe  was  interrupted  by  the  invasion  of  Mon- 
gol hordes  under  Tamerlane.  Despite  generalship  and 
heroism,  Sultan  Bayezid  I  at  the  Battle  of  Angora  was 
overwhelmed  by  the  superior  numbers  of  the  Mongols ; 
his  Eastern  troops  deserted,  and  he  was  taken  prisoner 
and  died  in  captivity.  Then  followed  an  interregnum  of 
eleven  years,  during  which  four  of  his  sons,  the  Princes 
Soulehnan,  Isa,  Mousa,  and  Mohammed,  disputed  the 
throne. 

At  last  Sultan  Mohammed  I  the  Patient  reigned  alone 


OS  CONSTANTINOPLE 

over  what  still  remained  to  the  Ottomans.  The  Mongol 
hordes  had  already  vanished  from  Asia  Minor  in  a  wild 
march  against  China.  But  Servia,  Bulgaria,  and  Wal- 
lachia  had  missioned  their  independence  ;  the  princes  of 
the  various  Asiatic  provinces,  only  recently  subdued,  had 
reascended  their  thrones.  Two  years  later  the  most  fear- 
ful revolt  in  Ottoman  history,  that  of  the  learned  theolo- 
gian, Behreddin,  at  the  head  of  the  dervishes,  endangered 
the  very  existence  of  the  Empire.  This  insurrection  was 
finally  crushed.  Sultan  Mohammed  toiled  with  tireless 
patience  and  skill  to  reconstruct  his  Empire.  When  he 
died,  almost  all  his  European  provinces  and  many  in  Asia 
had  been  resubdued. 

His  oldest  son,  Sultan  Mourad  II,  restored  the  Ottoman 
authority  over  the  remaining  rebellious  provinces,  con- 
quered Albania  in  1431,  Wallachia  in  1433,  and  overran 
Hungary  in  1438,  whence  he  brought  seventy  thousand 
prisoners. 

In  1444,  he  concluded  a  truce  of  ten  years  with  the 
Hungarians,  the  latter  swearing  on  the  Gospels  and  the 
Ottomans  on  the  Koran  to  faithfully  observe  the  treaty. 
Shortly  after,  overwhelmed  with  grief  at  the  sudden  death 
of  his  oldest  son  Alaeddin,  Sultan  Mourad  II  abdicated 
in  favor  of  his  son,  Mohammed  II,  then  fifteen  years  of 
age,  and  withdrew  to  Asia  Minor.  Thereupon  Cardinal 
Csesarini,  legate  of  the  Pope,  judging  the  occasion  favor- 
able, induced  Ladislaus,  King  of  Hungary,  to  break  the 
treaty  and  attack  the  youthful  Sultan.  To  save  the  Em- 
pire, Sultan  Mourad  II  again  mounted  the  throne.  As  a 
standard  he  put  in  front  of  his  army  the  violated  treaty. 
He  utterly  defeated  the  Hungarians  at  the  battle  of 
Varna,  where  King  Ladislaus  and  Cardinal  Cassarini  were 
slain. 


THE  RISE   OF  THE   OTTOMANS  01) 

"Hard  was  the  penalty  of  broken  faith, 
By  Ladislaus  paid  on  Varna's  plain; 
For  many  a  knight  there  met  unhonored  death, 

When,  like  a  god  of  vengeance,  rose  again 
Old  Amurath  from  his  far  home,  and  cried, 
'  Now  Jesns  combats  on  Mohammed's  side ! ' ' 

Again  he  abdicated  and  withdrew  to  Magnesia,  but  by 
civil  troubles  was  obliged,  sorely  against  his  will,  again  to 
resume  the  power.  Soon  after  he  captured  Patras  and  Cor- 
inth, and  forced  Constantine,  the  Prince  of  the  Morea,  who 
afterwards  became  the  last  Emperor  of  Constantinople,  to 
pay  tribute.  He  fought  unsuccessfully  with  the  Albanians, 
who  had  revolted  under  their  leader  Scanclerbeo;,  but  in- 
flicted  a  crushing  defeat  on  the  Hungarian  Huniadi  at  the 
second  battle  of  Kossova.  Dying  three  years  later,  he 
was  succeeded  by  Sultan  Mohammed  II. 

Master  of  all  Asia  Minor  save  the  Empire  of  Trebizond, 
and  of  nearly  all  the  wide  region  in  Europe  south  of  the 
Danube,  the  chief  aspiration  of  the  youthful  Sultan  was 
the  capture  of  Constantinople.     This  he  accomplished. 

The  subsequent  history  of  the  imperial  Ottoman  Dyna sty 
and  of  the  Ottomans  is  inseparably  interwoven  with  the 
history  of  this  city.  No  other  city  not  sacred  has  so  large 
a  hold  upon  their  imagination.  Often  affectionately  they 
call  it  Oummoudunia,  the  Mother  of  the  World,  and  Der 
el  Saadet,  the  City  of  Felicity ;  sometimes  Islambol,  the 
City  of  Islam,  or  its  Abundance  and  Extent.  The  latter 
appears  on  the  coins  of  Sultan  Abd-ul  Ham  id  I.  By  the 
Arabs  it  is  sometimes  called  El  Farruch,  the  Earth-Divider. 
Ever  since  1453  it  has  been  the  Ottoman  capital,  not  only 
the  political  centre,  as  residence  of  the  sovereign  and  of 
his  court,  but  the  focus,  the  heart  of  Ottoman  theology, 
jurisprudence,  and  literature.  It  has  been  more  to  their 
empire  than  Paris  is  to  France. 


'II 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


The  grandeur  and  growth  of  that  Empire  did  not  indeed 
terminate  or  culminate  in  the  acquisition  of  that  famous 
city  for  which  during  nearly  two  centuries  seven  sultans, 
both  as  successors  and  as  complements  of  one  another,  had 
been  preparing  the  way.  Montesquieu  considers  as  a  main 
cause  of  the  greatness  of  the  Roman  State  the  fact  that 
its  early  kings  were  all  "  grands  person- 
nages."  But  what  he  subsequently  says  is 
truer  of  the  first  seven  sultans  than  of  the 
seven  semi-legendary  Kings  of  Rome  :  "  One 
finds  nowhere  in  history  an  unbroken  suc- 


cession of  such    statesmen    and    such   gen- 
erals." 

Moreover,  each  appeared  in  just  the  cir- 
cumstances and  the  order  for  which  he  was 
best  qualified  by  his  talents,  natural  char- 
acteristics, and  disposition.  None  was  so 
fitted  for  the  period  of  patient,  half-silent 
reconstitution  as  Sultan  Mohammed  I ;  none 
for  the  period  of  primitive  foundation  and 
to  impart  the  primitive  impulse  as  Sultan 
Osman  I ;  none  for  the  conquest  of  the  city 
as  Sultan  Mohammed  II  the  Conqueror. 
A  succinct  sketch  like  this  can  neither  set  forth  nor 
do  justice  to  this  truth,  nor  can  it  adequately  represent 
those  sovereigns  in  their  high  role  of  organizers,  admin- 
istrators, and  patrons  of  learning.  Yet  it  aids  in  an- 
swering the  question,  how  from  a  patriarchal  chief  of  a 
few  hundred  families,  surrounded  by  envious  friends  and 
mightier  enemies,  was  developed  that  colossal  power  which 
shook  the  world.  Most  often  in  the  course  of  dynasties 
the  second  or  third  generation  has  diminished  or  en- 
feebled   the   political    structure    which   the   founder    has 


Horse-Tail 
or  Pasha 


THE  RISE   OF   THE   OTTOMANS  71 

built  up.  But  here  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  which 
of  the  first  seven  sultans  was  the  greater,  inasmuch  as 
all  were  great.  So  the  Ottoman  Empire,  as  it  enthroned 
itself  in  the  capital  of  Justinian  and  the  Constantines, 
though  bearing  the  name  of  its  first  sultan,  was  the  crea- 
tion and  development,  not  merely  of  one  conquering  hero, 
but  of  a  dynastic  line  which  Jouannin  asserts  to  have  been 
"  more  prolific  hi  great  men  than  any  other  dynasty  which 
has  reigned  on  the  face  of  the  globe." 


IV 


HIS   IMPERIAL   MAJESTY  THE  PRESENT  SULTAN 


&HE  sovereign  of  Constantinople  and 
of  that  widespread  empire  to  which 
it  is  capital  and  centre,  may  well 
awaken  curiosity  and  interest  on  the 
score  of  his  exalted  rank,  and  be- 
cause of  that  lordly  dynastic  line 
of  which  he  is  heir  and  representa- 
tive. But  a  still  sincerer  respect 
and  homage  are  due  the  present 
Sultan,  because  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  qualities 
which  characterize  him  as  a  ruler  and  a  man.  In  his 
veins  flows  the  blood  of  twenty  successive  sultans,  his 
ancestors,  and  he  is  the  twenty-first  in  direct  descent 
from  Sultan  Osman  I,  the  illustrious  founder  of  his 
house.  He  is  the  thirty-fourth  sabre-girdecl  sultan,  and 
the  twenty-eighth  who  has  reigned  at  Constantinople. 
No  other  European  monarch  can  trace  his  ancestry 
in  so  direct  and  unbroken  succession  through  so  many 
years  to  the  earliest  sovereign  of  his  race,  inheritance 
being  always  transmitted  in  the  male  line,  and  at  no 
time  deviating  farther  than  to  a  brother,  uncle,  or 
nephew. 

The  Oriental  pomp  of  his  titles  reads  like  a  passage 
from  the  "Arabian  Nights,"  —  Sultan  of  Sultans,  King  of 
Kings,  Bestower  of  Crowns  upon  the  Princes  of  the  World, 


THE  PRESENT  SULTAN  73 

Shadow  of  Gocl  upon  Earth,  Emperor  and  Sovereign  Lord 
of  the  White  Sea  and  the  Black  Sea,  of  Roumelia  and 
Anatolia,  of  Karamania,  of  the  Country  of  Roum,  Diar- 
bekir,  Kurdistan,  Azerbidjan,  Cham,  Aleppo,  Egypt,  Mecca, 
Medina,  Jerusalem  the  Holy,  of  all  the  Countries  of  Arabia 
and  Yemen,  and  moreover  of  an  Infinity  of  other  Prov- 
inces gloriously  acquired,  Son  of  Sultan  Abd-ul  Medjid 
Khan,  Son  of  Sultan  Mahmoud  Khan  II,  the  Shah  Sultan 
Abd-ul  Hamid  Khan  II. 

He  was  born  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  the  month  of 
Shaban,  in  the  year  of  the  Hegira  1258  (September  22, 
1842).  His  early  life,  like  that  of  every  Ottoman  Prince, 
was  passed  in  the  seclusion  of  the  seraglio,  save  that  in 
1867  he  accompanied  his  uncle  Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz  on  a 
journey  to  western  Europe.  This  was  the  first  occasion 
in  Ottoman  history  that  a  sultan  has  visited  a  foreign 
land  as  a  peaceful  guest.  The  mental  condition  of  his 
elder  brother,  Sultan  Mourad  V,  rendering  abdication  a 
state  necessity,  Sultan  Abd-ul  Hamid  II,  as  next  in  age, 
reluctantly  ascended  the  throne,  being  girded  with  the 
sabre  in  the  Mosque  of  Eyoub  on  Shaban  12,  1293 
(August  31,  1876). 

The  duties  incumbent  on  him  were  twofold  :  lie  was 
to  be  caliph,  or  spiritual  head,  of  the  unnumbered  millions 
of  the  Mussulman  faith,  and  Sultan  of  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire, whose  far-reaching  dominions,  with  their  heterogene- 
ous peoples,  stretch  through  three  continents.  The  political 
condition  at  his  advent  rendered  these  responsibilities  still 
more  weighty.  The  Empire  was  confronted  with  an  im- 
minent, inevitable,  and  inevitably  disastrous  war.  The 
treasury  was  empty,  national  credit  bankrupt,  the  army 
disorganized  and  dispersed,  the  country  impoverished,  dis- 
couraged, and  distracted  by  factions  whose  aims  were  all 


74  CONS  T.  1 NTINOPLE 

the  more  dangerous  because  concealed.  The  new  Sultan 
manifested  unusual  talents  in  organization  and  adminis- 
tration. There  was  no  problem  too  humble  or  detail  too 
minute  to  receive  his  careful  consideration.  Sympathetic, 
generous,  and  large-hearted,  he  endeavored  to  benefit  as 
well  as  rule  his  people.  No  other  living  sovereign  has 
equalled  him  in  gifts  to  the  unfortunate  and  suffering. 
Not  only  the  capital,  but  countless  villages  cherish  tokens 
of  his  interest  and  regard. 

He  has  shown  a  constant  desire  to  advance  education 
among  his  subjects.  Nor  has  this  solicitude  been  sympa- 
thetic merely,  and  confined  to  words,  or  limited  to  the 
requirements  of  a  single  sex.  In  private  conversations 
and  official  utterances,  he  has  frequently  urged  the  ne- 
cessity of  educating  women.  At  Constantinople,  as  also 
in  the  provinces,  there  are  numerously  attended  and  ad- 
vanced schools  for  girls  and  young  women,  which  he  him- 
self founded,  all  the  expense  of  which  is  defrayed  from 
his  own  private  purse. 

The  many  political  evils  existent  in  the  Ottoman  state, 
incurable  because  inherent  in  its  very  nature,  are  not  his 
creation,  but  his  inheritance.  These  he  has  endeavored 
to  mitigate  and  reform.  No  foreigner  can  adequately 
express  or,  perhaps,  fully  appreciate  all  the  difficulties  of 
his  position.  No  task  can  be  more  arduous,  delicate,  and 
intricate  than  that  committed  to  his  hands. 

His  personal  appearance  indicates  the  ruler,  not  so  much 
by  superior  height  or  unusual  physical  proportions  as  by 
the  calm  manner  of  one  sure  of  himself  and  accustomed 
to  be  obeyed.  He  speaks  in  a  low,  clear  voice,  which  it  is 
said  he  never  raises.  His  hair,  coal-black  at  his  accession, 
and  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  marked  pallor  of  his  face, 
lias  been  touched  by  time,  but  his  dark  eye  has  become 


THE  PRESENT  SULTAN  75 

no  less  penetrating  and  direct.  His  imperial  state  lie 
maintains  with  becoming  dignity,  but,  frugal  and  abste- 
mious in  personal  habit,  does  not  squander  his  revenues 
in  ostentatious  display  or  frivolous  extravagance.  He  is 
grave,  reserved,  and  seldom  smiles ;  is  kindly  and  solici- 
tous for  the  welfare  of  those  about  him,  and  is  scrupulously 
faithful  to  the  requirements  of  his  religion. 


V 
THE   GOLDEN   HORN 

\v&^^^B^(i  HIS  body  of  water,  a  narrow  bay  north 
\K  ^B  /n  "'"  ^tamboul.  well  deserves  its  sug- 
gestive name.  It  verifies  Strabo's  de- 
scription of  its  shape,  which,  he  says, 
"  resembles  the  horn  of  a  stag." 
When  Hooded  by  the  rays  of  the  set- 
ting sun,  it  reflects  the  light  from  its 
polished  surface,  and  glistens  like  a 
broad  sheet  of  gold.  The  fish,  though  less  abundant  in 
its  waters  than  in  ancient  times,  still  at  certain  seasons 
afford  generous  returns  to  the  fishermen,  and  suggest  a 
more  prosaic  origin  for  the  epithet  golden. 

Nor  is  mythology  without  its  claims  to  having  first 
bestowed  the  lasting  name.  Io,  the  mistress  of  Zeus, 
when  persecuted  from  land  to  land  by  Hera,  his  revenge- 
ful spouse,  found  refuge  for  a  brief  season  on  its  secluded 
banks.  Here  she  gave  birth  to  her  child,  the  golden- 
haired,  whom  the  nymphs  called  Keroessa.  The  melodious 
name,  when  literally  translated,  means  a  horn. 

At  its  northern  extremity  the  bay  receives  the  com- 
mingling tributary  waters  of  the  classic  Barbyses  and  Cy- 
daris.  AH  reminder  of  those  mythic  river-gods  was  long 
since  forgotten  in  the  modern  Turkish  appellation  of  Ali 
Bey  Sou  and  Khiat  Khaneh  Sou.  On  the  south,  between 
Galata  and  Seraglio  Point,  it  merges  itself  in  the  Bos- 
phorus.     Its  general  direction  is  northwest  and  southeast. 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  77 

It  is  almost  four  miles  in  length,  with  an  average  breadth 
of  sixteen  hundred  and  thirty-five  feet.  It  is  shallowest 
at  its  northwest  extremity,  but  even  there  is  over  ten  feet 
deep.  Its  central  channel  has  a  depth  of  over  nineteen 
fathoms. 

Thus  spacious  and  profound,  protected  in  every  direc- 
tion from  all  the  winds  that  blow,  it  is  a  most  magnificent 
and  auspicious  harbor.  Prokopios,  who  calls  it  by  another 
name,  wrrote  of  it  more  than  fourteen  hundred  years  ago  : 
tb  The  Bay  of  Byzantium  enjoys  a  perfect  calm,  whatever 
winds  rage  around  it.  Tempests  dare  not  invade  its 
boundaries,  and  approach  only  to  expire  reverently  at  the 
feet  of  the  imposing  city."  So  peaceful  are  its  waters 
that  whether  they  move  at  all  is  a  matter  of  dispute. 
Count  Marsigli,  the  first  to  write  upon  the  currents  of  the 
Golden  Horn  and  Bosphorus,  maintained  there  was  a  con- 
stant, imperceptible  flow  toward  the  south ;  Count  An- 
dreossy,  more  scientific  and  laborious,  asserts  that  its 
apparent  agitations  are  only  eddies  and  tiny  whirlpools 
near  the  shore. 

It  is  cut  into  three  sections  by  the  pontoon  bridges 
which  stretch  across  the  bay.  The  inner  and  by  far  the 
larger  section  constitutes  the  War  Harbor  of  the  Ottoman 
navy.  Here  the  ironclads,  the  pride  of  Sultan  Abd-ul 
Aziz,  are  usually  peacefully  moored,  when  not  undergoing 
repairs  in  the  extended  dockyards  along  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Horn. 

The  middle  section,  that  between  the  two  bridges,  is 
called  the  Commercial  Harbor.  Sailing  vessels,  tier  on 
tier,  are  wedged  against  one  another  close  to  the  banks ; 
their  myriad  masts  shoot  upward  like  a  dense,  bare,  spec- 
tral pine-tree  forest,  from  which  bark  and  branches  and 
evergreen  needles  have  been   stripped.      The   tiny  ferry- 


CONS  T.  I N  TINOPLE 


boats  and  steam-launches  and  countless  caiques  chase 
one  another  in  every  direction  with  an  endless  motion 
and  activity,  in  comparison  with  which  the  Grand  Canal 
at   Venice  is  lifeless  and   tame. 

The  harbor  east  of  the  lower  bridge  is  crowded  with 
the  commercial  navies  of  the  world.  They  vary  their 
incessant  arrival  and  departure  by  the  brief  season  that 
they  lie  there  at  anchor.     Every  known  flag  floats  out  in 

the  air  from  the 
staff  above  the 
poop,  except  that 
of  the  United 
States,  whose  colors 
are  most  rarely, 
almost  never,  seen. 
The  steamships  of 
the  favored  great 
English  lines  are 
ranged  so  close  to 
the  shore  that  their 
sterns  sometimes 
overhang  the  docks. 
The  dozens  of  local  Bosphorus  and  Marmora  steamers  pick 
their  way  laboriously,  almost  grazing  the  hulk  of  the 
linger  craft,  deluging  the  jetties  of  the  bridge  with  their 
cargoes  of  human  life,  and  on  departure  sinking  to  the 
gunwales  with  the  same  overloaded  precious  freight.  Cries 
of  expostulation  or  warning  in  the  commingling  din  of 
every  language  resound  from  the  water,  and  render  the 
bay  a  babel,  as  barks  and  boats  dart  daringly  across  the 
bows,  or  follow  cautiously  in  the  wake  of  the  larger  vessels. 
But  the  bridges,  whose  iron  pontoons  were  cast  in  Eng- 
land, but  whose  every  visible  feature  suggests  the  East, 


Harbor  of  the  Golden  Horn 


80  CONSTANTINOPLE 

are  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  the  Golden  Horn. 
Often  as  many  as  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  persons, 
children  of  every  race  and  clime,  clad  in  every  variety  of 
garment,  representing  every  gradation  of  human  rank, 
traverse  the  lower  bridge  in  a  single  day.  There  is  no 
rule  of  turning  to  right  or  left;  no  portion  of  the  crowded 
thoroughfare  is  reserved  to  carriages  or  pedestrians  or 
beasts.  The  counter-flows  from  Galata  and  Stamboul  get 
across  as  best  they  can.  The  pedestrian  plunges  into  a 
tumultuous,  living  mass,  dodges  and  hesitates  and  pauses 
and  rushes  on,  and  at  last  emerges  on  the  other  side,  almost 
in  wonder  at  his  escape.  Were  the  plank  flooring  less 
rickety  and  uneven ;  were  the  projecting  spikes  less  dan- 
gerous ;  were  the  dogs  and  beggars  less  persistent  and  re- 
pulsive, and  the  crowd  less  jostling  and  continuous.  —  the 
stranger  would  stand  still  for  hours  in  bewildered  contem- 
plation  of  a  spectacle  that  lias  no  equal,  and  which  un- 
folds in  endless  diversity  wherever  the  eye  is  turned. 

The  contrast  of  night  and  day  upon  the  bridge  is  start- 
ling. Speedily  after  sunset  it  is  absolutely  deserted. 
Even  the  vociferous,  rapacious  toll-collectors  are  gone 
One  may  plod  over  the  long  thoroughfare,  and  not  en- 
counter a  single  living  soul.  Where  tens  of  thousands  of 
hurrying  feet  have  pressed  upon  one  another  a  few  hours 
before,  now  in  the  darkness  a  footfall  sounds  mockingly 
and  out  of  place.  But  the  clogs,  stretched  like  dozing 
sentinels,  instantly  rebuke  the  intruder.  One  warning 
yelp  arouses  the  countless  horde.  Like  an  instantaneous 
discharge,  a  volley  of  canine  musketry  in  a  tempest  of 
barks  and  howls  runs  the  whole  length  of  the  bridge. 
Then  as  suddenly  all  relapses  into  stillness.  The  con- 
stant, muffled  night-roar  of  a  western  city  is  unknown  in 
the  East.     Hence  no  sound  is  heard  from  either  bank,  and 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  81 

the  adventurous  stranger  seems  to  himself  like  a  ghost 
between  two  silent  cities  of  the  dead.  The  serrated  out- 
line of  Stamboul  and  the  black  profile  of  Galata-Pera  on 
the  north,  caught  in  the  moonlight  beyond  the  placid, 
shimmering  water,  both  fascinate  and  awe. 


VILLAGES   ON   THE   GOLDEN  HORN 

Outside  the  ancient  city  walls  the  western  or  southern 
bank  of  the  Golden  Horn  was  occupied,  in  Byzantine  days, 
by  the  regions  of  Kynegion  and  Kosmedion.  Here  was 
the  frequent  hunting-ground  of  the  emperors  in  those  fan- 
tastic expeditions  when  ceremonial  and  display  had  a 
larger  place  than  pursuit  of  game.  As  one  now  fol- 
lows the  bank  along  the  water,  association  is  piled  on 
association  in  what  seems  a  heap  of  historical  debris. 

Deftardar  Iskelessi,  the  landing-place,  or  wharf,  of  the 
treasurer,  marks  the  spot  where  Justinian's  bridge,  sup- 
ported on  twelve  arches,  reached  the  land.  The  ancient 
structure  bore  many  other  names,  Bridge  of  Saint  Kallini- 
kos,  of  Saint  Mamas,  of  Kosmedion,  of  Saint  Pantelemon, 
and  of  the  Blachernai,  thus  indicating  which  tutelary 
saint  or  association  was  uppermost  at  each  period  in  suc- 
cessive centuries. 

The  tiny  harbor  of  Saint  Mamas  is  now  filled  up,  but 
it  was  once  lined  with  churches  and  imperial  edifices.  The 
many-windowed  Palace  of  Esma  Sultana,  sister  of  Abd-ul 
Hamid  I,  stands  where  stood  the  Church  of  Saint  Pante- 
lemon, erected  by  the  Empress  Theodora.  The  Convent 
of  Saint  Mamas,  a  construction  of  Leo  the  Great,  rebuilt 
by  Justinian,  was  the  first  receptacle  wherein  were  placed 
the  mangled  bodies  of  the  Emperor  Maurice  and  of  his 

VOL.  I.  —  6 


82  CONS  TANTINOPLE 

murdered  house.  The  Palace  of  Saint  Manias  outshone 
in  size  and  splendor  the  convent  at  its  side,  but  was  torn 
down  by  the  Bulgarian  King  Krum  in  revenge  for  the 
treachery  of  Leo  V.  the  Armenian. 

A  little  farther  north  was  the  thick-walled  Church  of 
Saints  Kosmas  and  Damianos,  commonly  called  "Acro- 
polis," because  so  strongly  fortified,  and  later  "  Castle  of 
the  French,"  because  for  a  time  the  residence  of  the  wily 
and  unscrupulous  crusader,  Bohemond  of  Tarentum. 
Paulinus,  the  "  Apollo  of  the  Age,"  erected  this  church, 
and  it  Ling  outlasted  its  builder.  Paulinus  was  put  to 
death  by  the  uxorious  Theodosius  II,  who  was  maddened 
by  jealousy  that  his  wife,  the  Empress  Eudoxia,  had  sent 
a  melon  of  unusual  size  as  a  gift  to  the  handsome  senator. 

Here,  too,  was  the  Xylokirkos.  or  Wooden  Hippodrome, 
where  state  offenders  and  outlawed  heretics  were  some- 
times surrendered  to  merciless  wild  1  leasts  by  as  mer- 
ciless judges.  The  thrilling  tale  of  Sergius  and  Irene  and 
Xilo,  the  Ethiopian  king,  in  the  romance  of  the  "  Prince 
of  India,"  is  located  within  its  long-vanished  walls.  A 
few  of  its  many  victims,  indeed,  escaped,  but  the  most 
found  no  arm  raised  for  their  deliverance,  and  won 
their  martyrs'  palms  amid  yells  of  hate  from  the  crowded 
benches.  A  little  farther  inland  the  disciples  of  Saint 
John  Chrysostom  sought  and  found  a  refuge,  and,  when 
their  turn  of  triumph  came,  anathematized  their  fellow- 
Christians  who  had  persecuted  and  exiled  their  head. 

But  modern  interest  centres  in  the  forest-embowered. 
tomb-dotted  village  of  Eyoub.  Considered  holy  ground 
by  the  Ottomans,  it  is  inhabited  only  by  followers  of  the 
Prophet,  though  a  few  Armenian  families  are  huddled  in 
its  outskirts  around  their  humble  churches  of  Saint  Elijah 
and  the  Holy  Virgin.     The   two   airy   minarets,   peering 


84 


COX  ST  A  XTIXOPLE 


above  the  trees,  indicate  a  spot  of  peculiar  sacredness  to 
the  dominant  race.  There,  according  to  Ottoman  be- 
lief, the  uncorrupted  body  of  Eyoub,  Standard-Bearer 
of  the  Prophet,  was  discovered  in  1453,  almost  eight  cen- 
turies  after   his    death.     At    once    a   great    mosque    was 


A  View  of  the  Golden  Horn  from  Eyocb 


reared  as  custodian  of  the  revered  remains.  Thither 
ever  since  almost  every  Ottoman  sultan  on  his  accession 
has  come,  to  gird  on  the  sabre  of  Osman  and  to  receive 
consecration. 

In  a  garden  near  the  mosque  is  an  enchanted  well,  on 
the  calm  surface  of  whose  deep  waters  startling  revela- 
tions of  the  future  are  sometimes  thought  to  be  afforded. 
In   the  overhanging  hill   is   Niyet   Kupussi,  the  Well   of 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  85 

Wishes.  From  it,  according  to  common  report,  astound- 
ing answers  are  sometimes  vouchsafed  to  the  prayers 
which  have  been  earnestly,  but  secretly  addressed  to  the 
spirits  below. 

The  curved,  hilly  ridge  beyond  the  Golden  Horn  was 
anciently  called  Drepanon,  a  sickle,  from  its  peculiar 
shape.  Along  its  base,  one  still  paces  through  the  avenue 
of  majestic  trees,  the  favorite  promenade  of  Achmet  III, 
who  died  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  years  ago ;  but  the 
marble  seats  are  gone,  which  were  placed  in  their  grate- 
ful shade  by  Ibrahim  Damat  Pasha,  and  likewise  the 
palace  which  he  built  for  his  master,  and  dubbed,  with 
a  presumption  that  resembles  irony,  "  The  Eternal 
Dwelling-Place."  The  present  name,  Khiat  Khaneh, 
the  paper  factory,  recalls  a  spasm  of  manufacturing 
enterprise  on  the  part  of  a  long-dead  sultan.  As  the 
Sweet  Waters  of  Europe,  the  spot  has  left  a  vivid 
memory  on  the  mind  of  many  a  traveller  who  lias  visited 
Constantinople . 

Here  every  Friday  in  summer  the  verdant  plains,  along 
the  banks  of  the  almost  motionless  rivers,  which  join  at 
the  Golden  Horn,  are  the  favorite  resort  of  Ottoman  ladies. 
The  light  caiques,  from  which  they  disembark,  graze  against 
one  another's  sides,  and  press  dove-tailed  among  the  sterns 
and  prows  till  they  completely  hide  the  surface  of  the 
stream.  In  the  luxuriant  shade,  thousands  of  ladies  sit 
upon  the  grassy  carpet,  or  on  mats  spread  by  obsequious 
attendants.  Here  some  grand  lady  is  seated  alone  in 
solemn  state,  surrounded  by  a  throng  of  servants  atten- 
tive to  her  nod  ;  and  there  are  careless  groups  in  the 
friendship  and  intimacy  of  equal  rank.  A  few  resemble 
magpies  in  their  incessant  chatter ;  but  the  most  are  lost 
in   dreamy  apathy  or    contemplation.      Careful   only  for 


8  0  CONS  TA  XTIXOPLE 

quietness  and  rest,  they  seek  no  diversion,  and  are  content 
with  the  languid  luxury  of  mere  outdoor  existence. 

Some,  less  inactive  than  their  companions,  turn  a  listless 
eve  to  the  muzzled  dancing  bears  or  the  restless  monkeys 
that  are  led  back  and  forth  for  their  delectation,  or  look  with 
half-indifferent  curiosity  at  some  staring  foreigner.  Hurdy- 
gurdies  and  puppet-shows,  resembling  the  English  Punch 
and  Judy,  attract  small  attention ;  but  the  venders  of 
sherbet  and  ice-cream  and  Oriental  sweets  find  a  ready 
market  for  their  wares.  Innumerable  children  in  flaring 
costumes  race  from  group  to  group,  and  are  petted  and 
caressed  by  all.  Their  constant  motion  varies  the  still 
monotony  of  the  scene. 

The  silken  robes  in  which  the  ladies  are  clad  —  each 
costume  consisting  of  a  single  color,  and  that  color  always 
a  hue  bright  and  striking  —  convert  the  plain  into  a  gar- 
den, prolific  in  bloom,  studded  with  radiant  human  flowers. 
Nearer  approach  does  not  dispel  the  illusion  of  grace  and 
beauty.  The  dainty,  half-transparent  veils  heighten  on 
many  a  face  its  revelation  of  perfect  loveliness,  and 
drape  less  attractive  features  with  the  suggestion  of 
hidden  charms.  Between  the  snowy  folds,  which  en- 
wrap lips  and  forehead  and  hair,  eyes  flash  out  in  whose 
brilliancy  and  lustrous  depths  are  all  the  languor  and 
romance  of  the  East. 

But  only  the  rash  and  ignorant  stranger  lengthens  his 
instinctive  glance  of  admiration.  A  prolonged  look,  how- 
ever respectful,  is  a  discourtesy;  and  oft  repeated,  an 
insult.  It  is  sure  of  punishment,  at  least  by  the  derision 
of  its  beautiful  recipient,  and  may  be  attended  by  more 
serious  danger.  Woe  to  the  artist  or  photographer,  if 
detected  in  the  attempt  to  snatch  a  picture  of  some  fair 
one,  or  of  the  scene !     He  may  depict  the  crowds  of  men 


88  COys  T.  1 XTINOPLE 

and  boys,  who,  as  if  shut  out  from  Paradise,  hang  upon 
the  outskirts,  but  there  his  efforts  must  stop. 

From  early  afternoon  until  an  hour  before  sunset,  the 
groups  remain  inactive,  listless,  and  happy.  Then  a  sud- 
den animation,  a  sort  of  universal  flutter,  seizes  the  femi- 
nine throng.  Their  caiques  creak  against  one  another, 
in  frantic  eagerness  for  the  shore.  The  Eastern  ladies 
exchange  their  solemn  salutations,  and.  embarking  are 
hurried  to  their  homes. 

On  Sundays  the  plain  is  monopolized  by  Christians. 
Then  Greek  and  Armenian  and  foreign  beauties,  attended 
in  European  fashion  by  an  admiring  train  of  gentlemen, 
stroll  along  the  shady  paths,  and  flirt  in  the  sequestered 
nooks  where  their  unescorted,  indifferent  Mussulman  sis- 
ters have  sat.  Where  the  white  veil  and  the  flowing 
ferradjeh  have  added  piquancy  to  the  landscape,  there 
two  days  later  are  displayed  well-moulded  robes  of 
Parisian  cut.  So,  for  a  day,  another  civilization  and 
another  race  hold  undisputed  mastery  of  the  spot.  Did 
not  the  natural  scenery  remain  the  same,  one  might 
imagine  himself  transported  to  some  public  garden  of 
the  "West.  Yet  though  the  company  is  modern,  the  un- 
changing hills  are  reminders  that  here  centres  a  classic 
legend  antedating  history.  Somewhere  along  the  shore 
of  the  voiceless  stream  is,  according  to  mythology,  the 
cradled  slope  "  where  Io's  child  her  infant  breath  first 
drew." 

As  one  turns  from  the  Sweet  Waters,  and,  on  the 
bosom  of  the  bay  amid  the  marshy  islands,  floats  south- 
ward to  the  city,  he  remarks  the  rude,  flat  kilns  and 
hollows  in  the  ground,  where  brickmakers  ply  their  pro- 
fession. Nowhere  better  than  here  can  be  traced  "  the 
long  pedigree  of  toil."     Few  royal  families  can  boast  so 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  89 

unquestioned  genealogic  trees  through  so  many  centuries 
as  these  humble  workmen.  Here  their  ancestors  exer- 
cised their  industry  for  the  imperial  builders  of  the 
sixth  and  seventh  centuries.  Since  then,  dynasties  have 
chased  one  another,  and  empires  fallen ;  and  meanwhile 
here  twoscore  generations  of  brickmakers  have  toiled 
on,  contented  with  their  simple  labor  and  proud  of  their 
lineage. 

The  gaunt  hill  of  Soudloudji,  which  one  passes  on  the 
left,  gives  faint  hint  of  the  unutterable  dreariness  of  its 
summit.  Not  a  growing  tree  and  hardly  a  blade  of 
grass  cheers  its  desolate  expanse.  It  seems  abandoned 
as  if  abhorred.  Yet  here  and  there,  amid  the  masses  of 
broken  stones  that  cover  its  arid  face,  narrow  lines  of  up- 
turned yellow  soil  and  flattened  slabs,  cut  with  uncouth 
Hebrew  devices  and  raised  little  above  the  surface  of 
the  ground,  indicate  that  the  place  is  given  over  to  the 
dead.  Thus  was  it  set  apart  in  Byzantine  days  for 
Jewish  sepulture.  The  burial  customs  then  enforced 
upon  a  detested  race  by  their  harsh  Christian  masters 
fossilized  into  traditions  as  fixed  as  laws,  and  are  still 
observed  by  the  exiled  Jews  under  the  milder  sway  of 
the  Ottomans. 

This  is  the  vastest  Jewish  graveyard  in  the  capital. 
Though  the  ground  is  full  to  bursting,  room  is  always 
made  for  more,  and  the  arrivals  are  ceaseless.  There  is 
nothing  sadder  upon  earth  than  an  Eastern  Jewish  cem- 
etery. No  race  is  more  devoted  to  their  co-religionists, 
the  living  or  the  dead,  than  are  the  Jews.  In  cholera 
and  pestilence,  when  Christians  have  forgotten  the  bond 
of  faith  and  the  ties  of  blood  in  utter  terror,  the  Jews 
have  stood  by  one  another  to  the  last.  Every  Eastern 
Jewish  cemetery  is  a   scathing   testimonial   of    Christian 


90  COS  ST  A  N  TINOPLE 

inhumanity  toward  that  people  of  whom  the  Saviour 
of  mankind  condescended  to  be  born. 

The  village  of  Piri  Pasha  farther  on  preserves  the 
name  of  the  intrepid  soldier  whose  fierce  counsels  stirred 
the  heart  of  Selim  I,  and  aided  to  overthrow  the  Persians 
at  the  desperate  battle  of  Calderan. 

Hasskeui,  densely  populated  by  Jews,  extends  along  the 
water  and  far  up  the  ravine.  After  the  Conquest,  it  be- 
came the  usual  burial-place  of  the  patriarchs  and  of  dis- 
tinguished Greeks,  but  their  every  tomb  has  disappeared. 
Sixty  years  ago  it  was  the  residence  of  an  enterprising 
American  colony,  who  built  here  many  a  man-of-war  for 
Mahmoud  II.  Now  their  place  is  supplied  by  a  com- 
munitv  of   English  engineers   and   artisans.     The   Sultan 

^  (Do 

has  no  worthier  men  in  his  service.  By  their  churches 
and  schools  and  in  their  social  relations,  they  preserve 
on  this  foreign  soil  all  the  worthiest  features  of  their 
distant  mother-country. 

On  the  height  overlooking  Hasskeui  is  the  Okme'idan. 
or  Plain  of  the  Arrows.  Here  many  a  shaft  indicates 
the  spot  where,  in  days  of  archery,  some  sultan  has  shot 
an  arrow  an  unusual  distance.  The  measure  of  prowess 
was  not  accuracy  of  aim.  hut  the  strength  of  the  archer's 
arm.  The  Okme'idan  was,  moreover,  the  common  gath- 
ering-ground in  times  of  national  calamity  or  distress. 
In  1592,  plague  ravaged  the  city  until  one  hundred  and 
eighty  thousand  persons  were  swept  away.  All  distinc- 
tions of  race  and  religion  were  blotted  out  in  the  universal 
horror.  The  Sheik-ul-Islam  and  the  Patriarch  proclaimed 
a  day  on  which  the  living  should  assemble  in  one  place, 
and  together  implore  deliverance  from  the  awful  pesti- 
lence. At  sunrise  of  the  appointed  day,  four  hundred 
thousand    persons  came   together   on  the  Okme'idan.  and 


THE    GOLDEN  HORN  91 

remained  there  until  sunset  in  prayer.  So,  after  earth- 
quake or  during  protracted  drought,  the  people,  regardless 
of  nationality  or  creed,  have  many  times  here  united  their 
urgent  prayers. 

Terskhaneh  spreads  along  the  hay  with  its  shipyards  and 
docks  and  shops,  ample  for  the  restoration  or  construction 
of  a  fleet.  Here  Ouloudj  Ali,  in  1571,  took  refuge,  with 
forty  battered  galleys.  They  were  the  sole  remnants  of 
that  proud  array  of  two  hundred  and  sixty-four  ships 
of  war  overwhelmed  by  Don  Juan  of  Austria  at  the 
fatal  battle  of  Lepanto.  The  victory  had  cost  the  Chris- 
tians dear,  —  fifteen  war  vessels  and  eight  thousand  men  ; 
and  to  Cervantes,  the  immortal  writer  of  "  Don  Quixote," 
an  arm.  But  the  Ottomans  never  were  able  to  retrieve 
the  disaster  of  that  day,  for  buried  in  the  red  waters  of 
Lepanto  was  their  reputation  of  invincible.  Meanwhile, 
Pope  Pius  V  thundered  from  the  pulpit  of  Saint  Peter's 
his  triumphant  chant,  "  There  was  a  man  sent  from  God 
whose  name  was  John,"  and  Selim  II  remained  three  clays 
prostrate  on  the  ground,  refusing  food  and  entreating  God 
to  pity.  Close  to  the  shore  till  a  few  years  ago,  was 
anchored  as  a  floating  dock  a  dismasted  three-decker, 
which  had  escaped  destruction  at  the  later  catastrophe 
of  Navarino. 

A  deep  ravine  beyond,  flanked  on  either  side  by  cypress- 
shaded  cemeteries,  rends  the  hills  in  one  continuous  chasm 
which  is  prolonged  above  the  heights  of  Pera.  The  ra- 
vine divides  into  two  enormous  fissures.  The  fissure  on  the 
left  or  west  is  overhung  far  inland  by  the  tranquil  village 
of  Piali  Pasha,  named  after  a  daring  sea-rover  of  Soule'i- 
man  the  Magnificent.  Down  the  fissure  on  the  right  or 
east,  Mohammed  II  made  the  roadway  wherein"  his  sixty- 
eight  galleys,  after  travelling  a  distance  of  almost   four 


9  2  CONS  TA  XTIXOPL  E 

miles  on  solid  land,  descended  upon  rollers  into  the 
Golden  Horn.  The  preparation  of  the  roadway  required 
days,  but  the  transport  of  the  galleys  was  the  work  of  a 
single  night.  In  the  morning;  the  astounded  Greeks  be- 
held  with  horror  the  fleet  of  the  besiegers  riding  trium- 
phant at  anchor  on  the  north  side  of  the  Golden  Horn. 

The  ravine  seems  never  to  have  been  inhabited  by  the 
Byzantines.  It  continued  a  desert  waste  till  1-52-5.  Then 
Kassim  Pasha,  a  favorite  of  Soulehnan  I,  ambitious  for  a 
monument  that  should  transmit  his  memory  to  future 
ages,  founded  a  village  here  and  called  it  by  his  name. 
The  architect,  Sinan  Pasha,  the  Michael  Angelo  of  Otto- 
man art,  added  to  its  splendor  by  the  erection  of  two 
magnificent  mosques.  Emir  Sultan  Djami  and  Koulaksiz 
Djanii.  More  than  forty  other  mosques  still  demonstrate 
the  luxury  and  the  piety  of  its  inhabitants.  No  other 
quarter  of  the  capital  contains  so  many  tekiehs,  or  der- 
vish convents  reputed  holy.  The  tekieh  of  the  Mev- 
levis,  well  known  by  many  Europeans,  who  have  thronged 
it  to  behold  the  dizzy  ritual  of  its  inmates,  was  founded 
by  the  dervish  Abcli  Decleh  from  the  pay  he  gained  by 
his  daily  toil.  Sultan  Mourad  IV  believed  the  humble 
laborer  by  his  intercessions  had  rescued  him  from  inevit- 
able death,  and  revered  him  as  a  saint  and  miracle-worker. 
In  a  gilded  mausoleum  in  the  cemetery  of  Koulaksiz 
Djami  lie  the  reputed  remains  of  Tchelebi  Hovsur  Ibni 
Houssem,  a  Kadiri  dervish,  who  died  over  three  centuries 
ago.  In  1889,  these  remains  were  found  in  perfect  pre- 
servation, were  exposed  three  days  to  the  veneration  or 
curiosity  of  thousands,  and  finally  with  imperial  pomp 
were  again  committed  to  the  tomb. 

Leaving  behind  Kassim  Pasha,  with  its  grim  Bagnio, 
and    the   airy  buildings   of   the   Ministry  of   Marine,  one 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  93 

glides  in  his  skiff  under  the  tortuous  upper  bridge  from 
among  the  anchored  ironclads,  and  reaches  the  second 
section  of  the  bay,  or  the  Commercial  Harbor.  Stamboul, 
an  ever-present  vision  along  the  circling  course  of  the 
Golden  Horn,  spreads  majestic  and  Oriental  on  the  south. 
On  the  north  the  domed  promontory  of  Galata,  watched 
over  by  its  colossal  tower,  and  merging  into  more  distant 
Pera,  rounds  up  into  the  sky. 


GALATA 

In  Galata,  the  East  seems  transformed  as  by  a  magi- 
cian's wand.  Jealous,  latticed  windows  are  almost  no- 
where seen.  The  furtive  minarets  are  few  and  humble. 
The  sharp  line  of  the  streets,  half-hidden  by  over-arching 
houses,  the  white  campanile  in  the  foreground,  solid  Ital- 
ian structures  erected  six  centuries  ago,  and  many  another 
architectural  feature,  distinct  in  the  endless  maze  of  maga- 
zines and  dwellings,  suggest  Italy  rather  than  the  East. 
Though  French  is  now  more  often  heard  in  its  thorough- 
fares and  shops,  the  common  language  till  a  generation 
ago  was  Italian.  Stamboul,  with  its  imperial  minarets 
proclaiming  the  Moslem  faith  from  every  hill,  looks  across 
disdainfully;  and  on  the  tongue  of  many  an  Ottoman 
Galata-Pera  is  sneered  at  as  the  Giaour  City,  the  City  of 
the  Infidels.  And  so  it  is :  a  Western  city  stranded  in 
the  East,  a  European  metropolis,  making  part  and  parcel 
of  the  Mussulman  capital,  and  yet  seeming  in  its  occi- 
dental life  and  customs  a  protest  against  an  Asiatic  civil- 
ization and  creed.  Nowhere  else  in  the  world  is  there 
such  an  anomaly  as  Galata-Pera  in  its  strange  environ- 
ment, swayed  by  the  sceptre  of  the  Sultan,  the  Caliph. 


94  CONS  T.  I XT1N0PL  E 

Many  derivations  are  given  for  the  name  Galata,  which 
it  bore  as  early  as  the  third  century  before  Christ:  one, 
that  ii  came  from  a  horde  of  Gauls  who  ravaged  the 
country  and  passed  over  into  Asia,  Minor  about  270  B.  c, 
under  Brennus,  their  king ;  another,  that  it  was  called 
after  Galatus.  a  wealthy  resident,  who  defended  it  with  a 
fortress;  and  one,  the  more  probable,  from  gala,  milk, 
since  its  herds  found  abundant  pasturage  on  the  neighbor- 
ing hills,  and  supplied  the  necessities  of  the  Byzantines. 

It  was  known  to  Constantine  as  Sykai,  or  Sykodes,  the 
Place  of  Figs  or  Fig-trees.  He  organized  it  as  the  thir- 
teenth Region,  or  Clima,  of  Nova  Roma,  surrounded  it  with 
walls,  and  thus  made  it  the  military  outpost  of  his  capital. 
Its  temples  of  the  Hero  Amphiaraos  and  of  Artemis  Phos- 
phoros  were  torn  down.  Its  statelier  Temple  of  Aphrodite 
Pandemos  had  already  given  way  to  a  Church  of  Saint 
Irene,  which  Bishop  Pertinax  founded  on  the  pagan  site, 
and  made  the  Episcopal  See. 

Under  Arcadins  and  Honorius  II,  the  suburb  waxed  rich 
and  populous,  proud  of  its  Forum  and  Arsenal  and  Arca- 
dian Bath,  and  of  its  splendid  churches  of  the  Holy  Vir- 
gin, the  Prophet  Samuel,  and  the  Maccabees.  Over  four 
hundred  patrician  mansions  displayed  its  magnificence 
and  luxury.  The  tireless  builder  Justinian  adorned  it 
with  an  imperial  palace,  a  theatre,  and  other  imposing 
structures,  and  called  it  Justinianopolis,  or  Justiniana,  from 
himself.  But  the  new  name  never  clung,  and  was  soon 
forgotten.  Close  to  the  water's  edge,  in  717,  Leo  III  built 
a  massive  tower,  and  from  it,  across  the  Golden  Horn, 
hung  that  historic  chain  which  played  so  decisive  a  part 
in  the  immediate  attack  of  the  Arabs  and  in  many  subse- 
quent sieges. 

Then  for  centuries,  Galata,  save  as  northern   terminus 


CONrTANTINOFOLITANA.        VRBI?     ZZI1GIZS       AD 


VIVUM    EXPRE-"A 


VAM        TVHCX        fTAMPOLDAM        VOCANT.  A'         MD    C~X-3CX\r 


Spr^tS   At   Z»<t   ,^f,„  TVUrt 
-t   -Si,     CmbUj  -     -     - 


i;/c 


COUSTANTTNOPLE    FROM    G 


ALATA     IN     16.35 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  95 

of  the  chain,  almost  disappears  from  history.  It  became 
the  purlieu  of  the  capital,  the  Adullam's  cave,  to  which 
debtors  and  criminals  and  slaves  escaped,  and  where  con- 
cealment was  easy.  But  the  Crusaders,  ignorant  of  its 
reputation  and  stronger  in  arms  than  in  exegesis,  re- 
garded the  place  with  reverence,  believing  that  to  it  Saint 
Paul  addressed  his  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  Many  a  pres- 
ent priestly  inhabitant  of  Galata  entertains  the  same  idea. 

During  the  twelfth  century  the  Venetians  and  Genoese 
were  fiercely  contending  for  the  commercial  supremacy  of 
the  Levant.  Every  naval  station  of  the  East  was  the 
scene  of  their  bloody  rivalry.  At  Constantinople  each 
party  occupied  a  quarter  appropriated  to  itself  with  its 
own  custom-house  and  landing-place.  More  than  sixty 
thousand  Italian  residents,  of  whom  the  Genoese  formed 
the  larger  number,  tormented  the  city  with  their  inter- 
minable broils.  In  the  great  fire  of  1204,  purposely  kin- 
dled by  the  French  and  Venetians  of  the  Fourth  Crusade, 
the  Genoese  quarter,  which  lay  along  the  Golden  Horn  in 
the  northeast  corner  of  the  city,  was  totally  destroyed. 
Many  of  the  sufferers  thereupon  betook  themselves  to 
Galata,  both  to  rebuild  their  fortunes  and  to  escape  the 
presence  of  their  triumphant  Venetian  foes.  There,  shut 
within  solid  walls,  they  rejoiced  at  the  growing  weakness 
of  the  Latin  Empire,  and  secretly  connived  with  the 
Greeks  for  its  overthrow. 

But  Michael  VIII,  when  he  restored  the  Byzantine 
throne,  distrusted  the  turbulent  sympathy  of  his  Genoese 
allies.  He  compelled  all  that  people  still  domiciled  in  the 
city  to  betake  themselves  to  Galata ;  but  he  destroyed  its 
walls,  and  forced  its  inhabitants  to  acknowledge  his  au- 
thority. The  three  conditions  he  extorted  involved  the 
semblance   of  submission    rather   than  its  reality :   every 


96  CONSTANTINOPLE 

new  Podestat,  or  chief  magistrate,  sent  from  Genoa  to 
administer  the  colony,  was.  on  arrival,  to  twice  bend  his 
knee  in  the  imperial  throne-room  before  the  Emperor,  and 
to  kiss  his  hands  and  feet;  all  other  Genoese  dignitaries 
were  to  pay  the  same  obsequious  homage  whenever  they 
came  into  the  Emperor's  presence ;  every  Genoese  galley, 
on  entering  the  harbor,  was  to  acclaim  the  Emperor  with 
the  same  salute  as  did  the  Greeks. 

Still,  from  1261  to  1453,  Galata  was  an  imperium  in 
imperio.  Its  inhabitants  were  colonists,  subject  to  no  law 
save  that  of  the  mother  state,  in  theory  the  vassals,  occa- 
sionally the  allies,  often  the  open,  and  almost  always  the 
secret,  enemies  of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Soon  they  made 
war  against  Michael  VIII,  but  were  subdued.  Once  they 
took  refuge  in  Constantinople  from  a  resistless  Venetian 
force.  For  future  protection  against  such  attack  they 
bought  permission  from  the  weak  old  man,  Andronikos  II, 
in  1303,  to  surround  their  settlement  with  a  moat  which 
"  might  be  deep  and  broad."  but  from  which  the  nearest 
house  "must  be  at  least  sixty  cubits  distant."  During 
the  civil  wars  which  rent  the  Byzantine  Empire,  they 
increased  their  territory,  built  lofty  walls,  dug  the  moat 
still  deeper,  and  rendered  Galata  impregnable. 

Genoa  meanwhile  watched  over  her  distant  stronghold 
with  scrupulous  fidelity.  On  its  preservation  depended 
her  mastery  of  the  Black  Sea.  More  than  Malta  or 
Gibraltar  is  to  England,  was  Galata  then  to  the  Genoese. 

Blinded  by  their  aversion  to  the  Greeks,  the  Galatese 
rejoiced  at  the  menacing  progress  of  the  Ottomans.  In  the 
final  siege  thev  were  the  virtual  allies  of  Mohammed  II. 
Genoese  artisans  smoothed  the  road  and  oiled  the  rollers 
on  which  his  galleys  with  spreading  sails  passed  over  the 
hills  into  the  Golden  Horn.     On  the  fearful  twenty-ninth 


THE    GOLDEN  HORN  97 

of  May,  the  rude  wakening  came.  The  fact  they  had 
refused  to  see  was  forced  upon  their  unwilling  eyes.  Con- 
stantinople fallen,  they  were  involved  in  its  fall.  No 
resource  was  left  them  save  like  absolute  submission. 
Hardly  had  Mohammed  II  quitted  Sancta  Sophia  when 
the  Podestat  of  Galata  brought  into  the  conquered  city 
the  keys  of  the  twelve  gates  of  Galata  on  a  silver  tray. 
The  conqueror  accepted  their  surrender,  ordered  the  forti- 
fications to  be  razed,  but  finally,  despising  their  weakness, 
allowed  the  walls  to  stand. 

So  the  entire  wall,  fronted  by  the  moat,  remained  intact 
forty  years  ago.  Until  1857,  the  gates  were  locked  at  a 
certain  hour  each  night,  and  no  belated  applicant  could 
obtain  admission  until  morning  save  by  payment  of  a 
generous  fee.  The  greed  of  to-day  has  levelled  up  the 
moat,  and  prostrated  the  wall.  As  one  stands  on  Ga- 
lata Tower,  and  gazes  downward  from  the  giddy  height, 
isolated  fragments  of  masonry  catch  the  eye  and  indicate 
the  general  outline  of  the  mediaeval  ramparts.  But  when 
he  threads  the  streets,  he  recognizes  nowhere  any  reminder 
of  those  frowning  fortifications  which  rendered  the  Gala- 
tese  so  haughty  and  bold. 

But  though  the  walls  have  vanished,  the  Strada  Selciata 
a  picco  —  the  Yuksek  Kalderim,  the  Steep  Paved  Street 
—  still  remains.  Up  it  winds  with  its  uncounted  steps, 
overloomed  from  top  to  bottom  by  the  ghostly  tower. 
Close  to  its  foot,  on  the  left,  in  the  Rue  Voivoda,  is  the 
site  of  the  castle-like  palace  where,  when  Italian  mer- 
chants were  princes,  the  Podestat  of  Galata  dwelt  in 
imperial  state. 

In  the  same  street,  a  little  farther  on,  stood  the  house 
in  which  over  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago  the  poets 
Andre  Chenier  and  Joseph  Chenier  were  born.  Galata 
vol.  r.  —  7 


98  CONSTANTINOPLE 

has  no  more  precious  recollection  than  the  memory  of  the 
fair  Greek  mother,  Sante  e  Omaka.  the  bride  of  the  French 
consul  Chenier,  who  in  that  narrow  street  inspired  her 
sons  with  the  loftiest  aspirations  of  the  past  and  with 
the  enthusiasm  of  living  nobly.  The  elder  died  in  Paris 
upon  the  guillotine  three  days  before  the  end  of  the  Reign 
of  Terror.  The  younger  lived  on,  and  enjoyed  a  world- 
wide fame.  His  "  Chant  du  Depart  "  still  inflames  the 
French  soldier  almost  equally  with  the  "  Marseillaise." 
The  two  brothers  prepared  the  way  for  the  romantic 
drama  of  our  century.  In  all  their  literary  achievement, 
as  Villemain  well  remarks,  "  they  always  seemed  ani- 
mated by  a  living  memory  of  the  days  of  their  childhood 
and  of  their  mother's  songs." 

Galata,  preserves  nothing  of  its  oldtime  martial  air, 
when  its  every  merchant  was  a  soldier,  and  its  every 
sailor  an  adventurer  or  buccaneer.  But  its  fiery  com- 
mercial fervor  has  never  cooled.  Its  Exchange  is  a 
pandemonium  of  clutching  fingers  and  rapacious  eyes. 
Though  ever  since  the  Conquest  the  Ottomans  have 
held  the  sword,  the  Christian  residents,  whether  native 
or  foreign,  have  controlled  the  purse-strings,  and  still 
control  them  here. 

Galata  has  not  only  counting-houses,  but  also  many 
churches  and  philanthropic  institutions,  and  the  whole 
thought  of  its  citizens  is  not  absorbed  in  the  gain  of  gold. 

The  Metropolitan  Church  of  Galata  was  dedicated  to 
Saint  George.  Destroyed  by  fire,  it  was  last  rebuilt  in 
1676.  At  that  time,  Louis  XIV  was  at  the  summit  of  his 
power,  and  was  desirous  of  dotting  the  world  with  monu- 
ments of  his  glory.  So  a  black  marble  slab  over  the 
lintel  of  the  inner  door  commemorates  the  munificence 
of  the  Grand  Monarch  as  its  restorer. 


THE    YCKSEK    KALDER1M 


1 0  0  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  Church  of  Saint  Peter,  twice  rebuilt,  has  been  in 
the  possession  of  Dominican  friars  over  five  hundred 
years.  It  is  rich  in  votive  offerings,  and  a  goodly  line 
of  devoted  priests  have  served  at  its  altar. 

But  its  most  cherished  possession  will  not  bear  the 
test  of  impartial  scrutiny.  This  is  a  mediaeval  picture 
which  the  fathers  believe  to  be  the  identical  painting 
once  revered  by  the  Greeks  as  the  Madonna  of  Saint 
Luke,  and  associated  with  a  thousand  years  of  Byzantine 
history.  It  is  a  demonstrated  fact  that  the  original  vener- 
able painting  was  in  the  keeping  of  the  Greeks  from  1261 
to  1453,  when  on  the  fall  of  the  city  it  was  captured 
and  divided  among  some  janissaries,  who  hung  the 
pieces  around  their  necks  as  talismans.  Even  the  in- 
scription which  the  friars  have  placed  beneath  their 
reputed  treasure,  contains  many  historical  errors. 

The  Church  of  Saint  Benedict  is  the  headcuiarters  of 
Catholic  missions  to  the  East.  Henry  IV,  the  white- 
plumed  Henry  of  Navarre,  retook  it  from  the  Italians, 
who  had  held  it  thirty  years,  and  restored  it  to  the 
French.  Here,  too,  is  a  reminder  of  Louis  XIV  the 
Great.  An  inscription  on  the  main  door  transmits 
the  story  of  his  royal  generosity  to  the  church.  On  the 
left  of  the  nave  is  the  tomb  of  a  woman,  than  whom 
none  saintlier  ever  labored  for  the  welfare  of  the  East. 
Her  French  epitaph  reads :  "  Here  lies  Sister  Therese 
de  Merlis,  Sister  of  Charity,  Superior  of  the  French 
Bospital  of  the  Taxim,  who  died  March  3,  1883,  at 
the  age  of  73  years.  Her  children  rise  up  and  call 
her  blessed."  Few  sovereigns  ever  received  a  grander 
burial.  Twenty  thousand  persons,  in  a  common  grief, 
marched  in  her  funeral  procession.  Here,  too,  is  the 
grave    of    the    Austrian    ambassador,    Baron    Wysz,   who 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  101 

died  in  1569,  the  first  foreign  envoy  to  the  Porte  who 
died  in  Constantinople. 

In  the  gloomiest  part  of  Galata,  accessible  only  through 
damp  and  sinuous  lanes,  stands  the  Armenian  Catholic 
Church  of  the  Holy  Saviour.  It  is  the  least  uninterest- 
ing of  the  churches  held  by  those  Armenians  who  have 
forsaken  then*  national  religion  and  accepted  the  su- 
premacy of  Kome.  Its  chief  distinction  is  derived  from 
possession  of  a  tomb,-  on  which  the  following  epitaph 
in  Latin  may  be  read :  "  Here  lies  the  body  of  the  most 
noble  hero.  Emir  Beshir  Sahabi,  for  fifty-six  years  the 
pacifier  of  the  Lebanon.  Loved  of  God  and  man,  lie 
was  taken  to  heaven  on  December  30,  1850."  The 
name  of  the  dead  emir  now  awakens  hardly  a  vague 
recollection.  Yet  little  over  fifty  years  ago,  it  agitated 
all  the  courts  of  Europe,  and  the  stately  autocrat  who 
bore  it  held  the  destinies  of  empires  in  his  hands.  At 
last  he  was  betrayed  to  the  allied  English  and  Austrians, 
who  surrendered  him  to  the  Ottomans.  He  was  kindly 
treated  by  the  latter,  though  under  constant  watch.  Ten 
years  later,  he  who  had  trod  the  slopes  of  Lebanon  as 
a  king  died  in  captivity  at  Kadi  Keui. 

The  four  Greek,  or  Orthodox,  churches  are  near  the 
shore,  and  not  far  distant  from  one  another.  In  almost 
every  architectural  detail  —  absence  of  a  dome,  unob- 
trusive plainness  of  exterior,  and  glassy  and  metallic 
glitter  within  —  each  is  typical  of  the  Greek  churches 
erected  since  the  Conquest.  The  oldest  is  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Virgin,  surnamed  the  Caffatiane,  from  a  picture  of  the 
Madonna  which  formerly  stood  over  a  well-curb  in  Caffa, 
and  was  brought  to  Constantinople  after  the  Conquest 
of  the  Crimea  by  Mohammed  II,  in  147-5.  This  picture 
has  been  enshrined  during  the  last  two  hundred  years  in  a 


102  COWS  T.  1 NTINOPLE 

heavy  sheath  of  wrought  silver.  The  tombstones  which 
stud  the  outer  court  bear  many  quaint  devices,  emble- 
matic of  the  occupation  of  the  deceased.    The  Karamanlis, 

or  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor,  worship  in  this  church.  The 
Church  of  Saint  Nicholas  is  a  sort  of  Seaman's  Bethel, 
highly  colored  and  brilliant,  thronged  at  all  hours  by 
sailors,  who  seek  the  intercessions  of  the  kindly  saint. 
Its  narthex  is  a  common  thoroughfare  between  neighbor- 
ing streets.  The  wealthy  and  luxurious  Sciotes  built 
their  Church  of  Saint  John  the  Baptist  in  1734.  By  a 
peculiar  provision  of  its  founders  it  is  independent  of 
the  Orthodox  or  Greek  Patriarch.  Strangers  from  the 
kingdom  of  Greece  worship  in  the  Church  of  the 
Transfiguration. 

It  is  the  just  pride  of  the  Armenians  that  they  were 
the  first  people  to  embrace  Christianity,  and  that  no  other 
national  church  is  so  ancient  as  theirs.  So  it  is  fitting 
that  their  chief  sanctuary  in  Galata  and  the  oldest  which 
they  possess  in  the  capital,  should  be  honored  by  the 
name  of  Saint  Gregory,  their  illustrious  Apostle.  This 
attractive  edifice  was  erected  in  1436,  and  consists  of 
three  intercommunicating  churches.  Its  altar  of  black 
ebony,  exquisitely  carved  and  inwrought  with  mother-of- 
pearl,  is  unique.  The  tiny  chapel  on  the  left  of  the  altar 
contains  an  ancient  picture  of  Christ  —  called,  in  art.  a 
black  Christ  —  which  was  found  hidden  in  a  cave,  and  is 
still  believed  to  effect  marvellous  cures.  The  episcopal 
staff  in  jasper,  ebony,  and  mother-of-pearl  is  a  rich  speci- 
men of  Armenian  art.  Near  the  main  entrance,  on  the 
right  of  a  patriarchal  tomb,  undistinguished  by  any  monu- 
ment. l»ut  held  in  everlasting  national  remembrance,  is 
the  grave  of  the  journalist,  Matteos  Arvadian,  who  died 
in  1877. 


THE    GOLDEN  HORN  103 

Around  the  church  cluster  many  Armenian  institutions 
■of  education  and  beneficence.  One,  called  the  United 
.Societies  for  maintaining  Schools  in  the  Interior,  enjoys 
the  generous  patronage  of  the  Sultan.  Here,  too,  is  the 
•Central  Armenian  School,  founded,  in  1885,  by  the  Great 
Patriarch  Nerses.  Probably  mathematics,  a  branch  in 
which  the  Armenians  naturally  excel,  is  here  carried 
farther  than  in  any  other  college  in  the  Empire. 

PEKA 

The  human  overflow  from  Galata  northward  lias  given 
rise  to  Pera.  In  its  present  opulence  and  extent  Pera 
is  a  creation  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  never 
•enclosed  by  walls,  and  is  destitute  of  natural  boundaries. 
Although  from  thy  first  a  centre  of  diplomacy,  it  has 
hardly  any  history  of  its  own.  Stavrodromion,  the  Cross 
Streets,  is  its  name  among  the  Greeks.  The  Ottomans 
•call  it  Beyoglou,  the  Residence  of  the  Prince,  inasmuch 
as  the  exiled  Alexios  V,  Emperor  of  Trebizond,  resided 
here  after  his  deposition  by  his  ill-starred  uncle  David. 
Yet  its  earlier  and  more  significant  appellation  of  Pera, 
Beyond,  seems  destined  to  outlast  all  its  other  names. 

Its  character  is  that  of  cosmopolitan  Europe,  with  almost 
absolute  exclusion  of  the  East.  The  Mussulman  state 
dignitaries,  who  sit  at  its  formal  bancpiets  and  with  solemn 
courtesy  attend  its  formal  receptions,  seem  like  exotics  on 
a  soil  that  is  their  own.  Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
among  the  residents  of  Stamboul  have  never  even  trodden 
the  streets  of  Pera.  The  Ottoman  ladies,  whom  it  allures 
by  its  Parisian  goods,  glance  curiously  through  its  windows 
of  plated  glass,  hurriedly  complete  their  purchases,  and 
hasten  home. 


104  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Its  distinctive  features  arc  its  churches  of  many  Chris- 
tian creeds ;  its  schools  for  both  sexes,  of  every  grade  and 
of  every  European  nationality  ;  its  palatial  residences  of 
the  European  ambassadors ;  and  its  European  shops, 
stocked  with  all  the  fabrics  of  the  inventive  West. 

The  embassies  vie  with  one  another  in  ostentation  and 
display.  Although  straining  after  effect  has  been  modified 
in  this  more  practical  age,  yet  still  each  representative  of 
the  Great  Powers  esteems  it  a  portion  of  his  mission  to 
eclipse  his  colleagues,  or  at  least  to  maintain  equal  state. 
The  ambassador,  his  palace  and  attendants,  and  all  his 
outward  show,  together  constitute  a  whole  which  is  a  sort 
of  pattern  or  specimen  whereby  the  strength  and  grandeur 
of  the  empire  behind  him  may  be  judged. 

Yet  to  create  superficial  impression,  however  important, 
is  not  the  chief  ambition  of  these  titled  diplomats,  the 
splendor  of  whose  appointments  and  the  magnificence  of 
whose  income  surpass  the  simpler  resources  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  The  Eastern  Question  has 
been  for  centuries  the  unsolved,  burning  problem  of  Euro- 
pean politics,  and  will  doubtless  so  continue  for  years  to 
come.  Nowhere  else  is  the  tireless  game  of  statecraft 
so  uninterruptedly  pursued,  and  so  never  done.  The 
astutest  diplomatic  intellects,  sharpened  and  perfected  by 
long  experience  and  varied  training,  have  been  despatched 
hither  in  a  successive  line  of  players  from  their  respec- 
tive courts,  have  touched  a  piece  or  have  made  a  move, 
and  then  have  dropped  away,  and  the  game  has  still 
gone  on. 

Meanwhile  the  Ottoman,  the  shrewdest  player  of  them 
all,  has  pitted  one  against  another,  has  cajoled  them  each 
and,  even  when  the  issue  seemed  most  dubious,  has  never 
wholly  lost.     The  British  Embassy  in  Pera  stands  on  land 


THE    GOLD  EX  HORN  105 

presented  by  the  Ottomans  to  Great  Britain  in  gratitude 
for  British  aid  against  the  French  in  1801 ;  the  French 
Embassy  on  the  Bosphorus  likewise  stands  on  land  pre- 
sented by  the  Ottomans  to  France  in  gratitude  for  French 
aid  against  the  British  in  1807.  The  unsightly  shaft  in 
the  British  cemetery  at  Scutari  commemorates  assistance 
against  Russia  afforded  the  Ottomans  by  both  Great 
Britain  and  France  in  the  Crimean  War ;  another  shaft, 
far  up  the  Bosphorus,  indicates  the  spot  where,  in  response 
to  the  call  of  Mahmoud  II,  a  Russian  army  landed  in 
1833,  and  by  the  significance  of  its  presence  preserved  lo 
the  Sultan  his  imperilled  throne. 

The  different  embassies  are  more  remarkable  for  com- 
modiousness  and  size  than  for  any  other  architectural 
feature.  The  Russian  and  the  German  occupy  command- 
ing positions :  the  former,  comprising  a  main  structure 
with  broad  wings,  is  imposing  as  seen  from  the  Golden 
Horn ;  the  latter  overlooks  the  Bosphorus.  The  British 
Embassy  is  a  vast  rectangle,  visible  far  up  the  Golden 
Horn.  First  erected  in  1801,  while  Lord  Elgin  —  mem- 
orable for  his  spoliation  of  the  Parthenon  and  for  the 
Elgin  Marbles  —  was  ambassador,  it  was  destroyed  by 
fire  in  1831,  and  again  in  1870,  after  which  it  was 
restored  in  its  present  form. 

The  migration  of  the  ambassadors  from  Stamboul, 
where  formerly  they  were  expected  to  reside  kk  so  as  to  be 
under  the  Sultan's  e}Te,"  has  been  gradual.  Even  to  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  ambassadors  of 
Poland,  of  Ragusa,  and  of  the  King  of  Hungary  —  under 
which  title  the  Emperor  of  Germany  accredited  his  envoy 
—  still  dwelt  in  Stamboul.  For  many  years  the  French 
ambassador,  who  was  the  earliest  to  remove  across  the 
bay,   lived  in   Pera,  apart   from   all   his  colleagues,   in   a 


106  CONSTANTINOPLE 

house  first  assigned  him  by  Souleiman  I.  the  unswerving 
ally  of  Francis  I.  The  intimate  alliance  between  the 
Ottoman  Sultan  and  the  French  King,  "  the  first  important 
event  in  the  diplomatic  history  of  Pera,"  was  negotiated 
here.  In  this  alliance  the  Protestant  Reformers  had  no 
share  :  vet  it  had  momentous  influence  upon  the  destinies 
of  the  Reformation.  Grape-vines  covered  all  the  slopes, 
ami  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  the  French  ambas- 
sadors often  dated  their  letters  from  "the  vineyards  of 
Pera."  The  present  French  Embassy  is  the  fourth  which 
has  stood  on  the  same  spot.  It  is  elaborate  in  appearance, 
constructed  in  1838,  in  the  style  dear  to  Louis  Philippe, 
and   surrounded  by  charming  gardens. 

Though  Austria  long  since  ceded  Venetia,  she  still 
retains  the  palace  wherein  dwelt  the  Baillis  of  Venice 
accredited  to  the  Porte.  This  has  been  in  her  possession 
ever  since  1815,  when  the  Congress  of  Vienna  reduced 
Venice  to  the  rank  of  an  Austrian  province.  The  other 
embassies  are  of   less  interest  and  importance. 

It  is  to  he  regretted  that  the  United  States  possess  no 
fixed  habitation  for  their  representative  to  the  Sublime 
Porte.  The  conditions  of  life  in  Constantinople  so  differ 
from  those  in  other  European  capitals  that  what  might 
elsewhere  be  an  injudicious  acquisition  is  almost  a  neces- 
sity here.  The  Ottoman  Government  with  its  habitual 
hospitality  would  readily  grant  a  plot  of  land,  whereon  a 
simple,  inexpensive,  and  appropriate  structure  might  be 
erected.  Expenditure  for  such  a  purpose  would  be  an 
ultimate  economy,  both  to  the  United  States  and  to  their 
representative.  It  would  not  only  diminish  the  hitter's 
annoyances,  but  increase  his  efficiency.  It  would,  above 
all,  convenience  those  who  require  his  services.  Now  the 
American    Legation    is  so  subject  to  spring   and    autumn 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  107 

removal  from  place  to  place  that  its  appropriate  emblem 
is  a  carpet-bag  rather  than  an  eagle.  The  traveller  with 
urgent  business  or  even  the  resident,  unaware  of  the  latest 
change  of  residence,  often  wastes  precious  time,  chasing 
fur  hours  through  an  extended  capital  after  the  office  or 
the  dwelling  of  his  Minister,  which,  like  an  ignis  fatuus, 
seems  constantly  fleeing  before  him. 

So  near  each  other  as  to  accentuate  the  contrast 
between  them  are  Somerset  House  and  the  Tekieh,  or 
Convent,  of  the  Mevlevi  Dervishes.  The  former  struc- 
ture serves  as  a  philanthropic  and  educational  centre,  and 
is  specially  devoted  to  the  needs  of  the  British  commu- 
nity. The  name  commemorates  an  eminent  Scotch  divine 
of  varied  learning  and  wide  sympathies. 

The  tekieh,  in  the  midst  of  turbanecl  tombstones,  and 
peopled  by  inmates  in  ultra  Oriental  garb,  seems  out  of 
place  in  modern  European  Pera.  But  the  very  existence 
of  the  dervishes  anywhere  is  an  anomaly  and  contrary  to 
the  intent  of  the  Prophet  Mohammed,  who  declared  there 
should  be  "  no  monks  in  Islam."  The  wise  lawgiver's 
prohibition  could  not  stem  the  ascetic  tendency  in  human 
hearts.  The  sect  of  the  Ouve'is  was  founded  in  6-57, 
twenty-five  years  after  the  Prophet's  death.  They  re- 
sembled the  Akoimetai,  or  Sleepless  Monks,  in  that  their 
worship  was  ceaseless.  Since  then  at  least  one  hundred 
and  fifty  other  orders  —  orthodox  and  heretical  —  have 
gradually  arisen,  and  their  membership  must  be  reckoned 
by  tens  of  thousands.  Though  permitted  to  marry,  they 
are  austere  in  every  other  sense.  While  avoiding  many 
excesses  of  Christian  monasticism,  they  have  developed 
other  and  equal  extravagancies  of  their  own. 

Each  sect  rallies  around  some  special  central  idea, 
worships  according  to  its  own  ritual,  and  is  marked  by 


108  CONSTANTINOPLE 

some  peculiarity  in  its  attire.  The  headdress  is  the  most 
distinguishing  feature,  varying  in  size,  shape,  color,  mate- 
rial, and  specially  in  the  plaits  or  folds  of  its  turban. 
Constantly  in  their  hands  are  rosaries  of  thirty-three, 
sixty-six.  but  most  often  of  ninety-nine  heads,  always 
terminating  in  one  other  head  larger  than  the  rest. 
The  rosaries  are  used  only  with  religious  intent,  never 
negligently  or  as  diversion,  and  each  bead  is  significant 
of  a  beneficent  name  of  the  Deity.  These  are  the  "  ninety- 
nine  beautiful  names"  which  Edwin  Arnold,  in  his  "Pearls 
of  the  Faith/'  has  wrought  into  ninety-nine  poems,  among 
the  most  devout  air!  spiritual  i:i  the  English  language. 
Discountenanced  secretly  by  the  clergy,  the  dervishes,  on 
account  of  their  poverty,  austerity,  and  fanaticism,  are 
revered  by  the  common  people,  and  are  to-day  justly 
esteemed   a   mainstay  of    Islam. 

The  tekiehs  are  always  simple  and  unostentatious 
structures,  usually  of  wood.  Such  is  that  of  the  Mev- 
levis  at  Pera,  though  the  chapter  is  among  the  wealthiest 
of  the  order.  A  large  gateway,  surmounted  by  the  toughra, 
or  imperial  seal,  and  a  1  tarred  and  grated  mausoleum  of 
dervish  saints,  over  which  rises  the  peaked,  brimless  hat, 
challenges  the  attention  of  the  passer-by.  In  the  spacious 
courtyard  is  the  peculiar  pride  of  the  dervishes.  This  is 
an  enormous  ivy,  which  has  apparently  forgotten  how  to 
climb,  and  grows  like  a  tree.  On  the  left,  are  the  graves 
of  Mussulman  dignitaries  and  holy  men.  In  the  strange 
company  sleeps  the  French  soldier  of  fortune,  the  Count 
de  Bonneval.  He  embraced  Islam,  became  grand  master 
of  artillery,  and  is  known  in  Ottoman  history  as  Achniet 
Pasha.  The  monument  of  the  adventurer  is  still  erect, 
and  hears  the  following  half-mournful  epitaph:  w*  In  the 
name  of   Almighty  God,  Who  alone  is  eternal.     May  the 


THE   GOLDEN  HORN  109 

All  Holy  and  Most  High  God  have  mercy  upon  the  faith- 
ful of  both  races,  and  forgive  the  Komnbaradji  Pasha 
Achmet.     Redjeb  18,  11(30." 

Directly  opposite  the  entrance  is  the  tekieh.  The 
main  room,  differing  from  that  of  the  other  orders  in 
shape,  is  circular.  Above  and  below  run  galleries  for 
the  reception  of  spectators.  The  dervishes,  unlike  the 
celebrants  in  mosques,  are  glad  of  the  presence  of  visi- 
tors. Over  the  entrance  is  the  station  of  the  orchestra, 
and  on  either  side  are  the  latticed  chambers  of  the  Sultan 
and  of  Ottoman  ladies. 

The  services  commence  with  the  namaz,  or  canonical 
prayer.  Then  the  dervishes  seat  themselves  in  a  circle 
upon  the  sheepskins,  and  remain  for  several  moments 
apparently  absorbed  in  silent  devotion.  Their  heads  are 
bowed,  their  eyes  closed,  their  arms  folded  upon  their 
breasts.  The  Sheik  chants  a  hymn  to  the  glory  of  Allah. 
Then  he  calls  upon  the  assembly  to  repeat  with  him  the 
fatiha,  or  first  chapter  of  the  Koran. 

He  closes  his  solemn  invitation  in  these  words :  "  Let 
us  repeat  the  fatiha  in  honor  of  the  holy  name  of  Allah, 
in  honor  of  the  blessed  legion  of  the  prophets,  but  above 
all  of  Mohammed  ul  Moustapha,  the  greatest,  most  august, 
and  most  magnificent  of  all  the  celestial  envoys.  Let  us 
repeat  it  in  memory  of  the  first  four  Caliphs ;  of  Fatima 
the  Holy ;  of  Khadidjah  the  Chaste  ;  of  the  Imams  Has- 
san and  Housse'in  ;  of  all  the  martyrs  of  the  memorable 
day  of  Kerbela ;  of  the  ten  evangelists;  of  the  virtuous 
consorts  of  our  holy  prophet;  of  all  his  zealous  and  faith- 
ful disciples  ;  of  all  the  consecrated  interpreters  ;  of  all  the 
doctors,  and  of  all  the  sainted  men  and  women  of  Islam. 

"  Let  us,  moreover,  repeat  it  in  honor  of  Hazret  Mevlaneh, 
founder  of  our  Order  ;  of  Hazret   Sultan  ul  Oulema,  his 


110  CONST.  1 N  TINOPLE 

father;  of  Seid  Burknanuddin,  his  teacher;  of  Sheik 
Shemseddin,  his  consecrator;  of  Valideh  Sultana,  his 
mother;  of  Mohammed  Ala  Eddin  Effendi,  his  son  and 
vicar;  of  *  all  his  successors;  of  all  the  sheiks;  of  all  the 
dervishes,  and  of  all  the  protectors  of  our  institution,  to 
whom  may  the  Supreme  Being  condescend  to  grant  peace 
and  piety.  Let  us  pray  for  the  constant  prosperity  of  our 
holy  society;  for  the  preservation  of  the  very  learned  and 
very  venerable  General  of  the  Order,  our  master  and  lord ; 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Sultan,  the  very  majestic  and 
very  merciful  Emperor  of  the  Mussulman  Faith;  for  the 
prosperity  of  the  Grand  Vizir,  and  of  the  Sheik  ul  Islam, 
and  for  that  of  all  the  Mussulman  hosts,  and  of  all  the 
pilgrims  of  Mecca. 

"  Let  us  pray  for  the  repose  of  the  souls  of  all  the 
instructors,  of  all  the  sheiks,  of  all  the  dervishes  of  the 
other  orders ;  for  all  men  of  good  life  ;  for  all  who  are 
eminent  for  their  works,  their  gifts,  and  beneficent  acts. 
Let  us  finally  pray  for  all  the  Mussulmans,  both  men  and 
women,  of  East  and  West ;  for  maintenance  of  all  pros- 
perity;  for  deliverance  from  all  adversity;  for  accom- 
plishment of  all  salutary  desires ;  for  the  success  of  all 
praiseworthy  undertakings.  Finally,  let  us  entreat  God 
that  He  deign  to  preserve  in  us  the  gifts  of  His  grace 
and  the  fire  of  His  holy  love." 

In  response,  the  assembly  intone  the  fat  ilia . :  '"Praise 
to  God,  Sovereign  of  the  Universe,  the  Merciful,  the  Com- 
passionate, Sovereign  at  the  day  of  judgment.  It  is  Thou 
whom  Ave  adore;  it  is  Thou  of  whom  we  implore  the  aid. 
Direct  us  in  the  narrow  path,  in  the  path  of  those  whom 
Thou  hast  heaped  with  Thy  benefits,  of  those  who  have 
not  deserved  Thy  wrath,  and  who  go  not  astray.  Amen.*' 
The  Sheik  recites  the  tekbir,  an  ascription  of  glory  to  God, 


THE    GOLDEN  HORN 


111 


and  the  salatvitr,  the  prayer  daily  offered  before  dawn. 
Then  all  is  ready  for  the  mysterious  circular  dance  which 
characterizes  the  worship  of  the  Mevlevis,  and  from  which 
they  are  commonly  called  the  Whirling  Dervishes. 

All  the  dervishes  rise.  With  the  precision  of  automatons 
they  file  before  their  sheik.  Every  feature  of  their  de- 
meanor and  bearing,  every  smallest  detail  of  posture  or 
gesture  or  immobile  rest,  is  prescribed  by  a  fixed  ritual, 
and  has  a  symbolic  meaning.  These  details  are  count- 
less ;  to  the 
non-Mussul- 
man often 
appear  puer- 
ile, and  from 
their  num- 
ber and  mi- 
nuteness es- 
cape the 
most  inquis- 
itive stran- 
ger. The 
Sheik  be- 
stows    his  The  Whirling  Dervishes 

benediction 

on  each  approaching  figure  with  a  peculiar  wave  of  the 

hand  which  resembles  a  magnetic  pass. 

As  the  moment  draws  near  for  the  whirling  to  begin, 
the  aspect  of  the  votaries  changes.  The  stolid,  passive, 
pensive  forms  seem  waking  like  war-horses  at  the  first 
blast  of  the  trumpet.  The  leader  of  the  procession  makes 
his  last  salutation  to  the  Sheik.  Then  on  the  heel  of  the 
bare  right  foot  he  commences  to  revolve.  His  head  is 
bent  low  over  the  right  shoulder,  and  his  eyes  are  half 


112  CONSTANTINOPLE 

closed.  Both  arms  are  extended  :  the  right  is  raised  aloft, 
palm  upward,  to  signify  petition  for  and  reception  of  divine 

blessings;  the  left  is  depressed,  palm  downward,  thereby 
indicating  that  the  blessings  are  received,  and  with  self- 
renunciation  are  bestowed  on  others. 

Then  another  dervish  in  like  manner  begins  to  turn  ; 
then  another  and  another,  till  all  have  joined  the  whirl- 
ing company,  and  the  room  reveals  only  a  dizzy  maze 
of  circling  forms.  Each  revolves  not  only  upon  him- 
self, but  around  all  the  rest.  Circle  swings  in  intricate 
circle,  and  the  relative  position  of  each  is  in  constant 
change  throughout  the  hall.  The  long  white  robes,  hang- 
ing to  the  feet,  slowly  distend  by  the  rapid  motion,  and  at 
last  stand  at  right  angles  to  the  wearer.  Yet,  though  the 
space  is  small  and  the  participants  are  many,  never  does 
robe  graze  robe,  nor  hand  collide  with  hand. 

All  the  time  the  faint  and  soothing  music  of  the  flute- 
like  neik  and  the  tambourine  sustains  and  animates  the 
devotees.  The  velocity  of  motion  becomes  greater,  and 
the  absorption  of  the  actors  more  intense.  The  pallid 
faces  of  the  zealots  seem  transformed.  On  many  a  coun- 
tenance dawns  an  expression  of  ecstasy,  and  all  seem 
moving  as  if  in  a  delicious  dream.  So  the  living  laby- 
rinth glides  on  for  eighty  or  ninety  minutes.  Only  twice 
is  the  motion  interrupted  by  brief  pauses,  during  which 
the  Sheik  offers  prayers.  In  times  of  great  emergency  or 
public  distress,  he  himself  takes  part,  having  his  station 
as  a  revolving  sun  in  the  centre  of  his  human  planets, 
and  repeating  prayers  in  Persian  appropriate  to  the 
occasion. 

At  last  the  fatiha  is  again  repeated,  and  the  fantastic 
but  graceful  rites  are  done.  To  the  Christian,  however 
wide    bis    range  of  expression  and  thought,  it  is  hard  to 


THE    GOLDEN  HORN  113 

associate  the  idea  of  worship  with  these  circling  mazes. 
Nor  do  the  Mevlevi  dervishes  themselves  agree  as  to  the 
exact  meaning  of  their  observances.  Perhaps  thus  they 
imitate  their  pious  founder,  who  in  excitement  or  spiritual 
exaltation  would  spring  from  his  seat  and  turn  round 
many  times.  Some  hold  that  thus  they  best  abstract 
their  minds  from  all  external  objects.  Others  claim  that . 
in  this  manner  they  set  forth  the  revolutions  and  hence 
the  celestial  worship  of  the  stars.  The  most  assert  that 
the  circle,  the  only  perfect  figure,  represents  Allah,  who 
alone  is  perfect,  and  doubtless  in  the  physical  exercise  the 
groping  devotees  seek  likeness  to  God. 

The  churches  in  Pera  are  numerous,  suiting  every  form 
and  degree  of  faith.  Only  two  have  a  history  of  over  two 
hundred  years,  and  none  are  remarkable  for  either  archi- 
tecture or  size. 

The  most  prominent  educational  institution  is  the  impe- 
rial Lycee  of  Galata  Serai,  modelled  after  a  French  Lycee, 
and  officered  by  a  splendid  corps  of  more  than  eighty 
instructors.  The  Lycee  is  a  special  pet  of  the  present 
Sultan.  It  was  founded  in  1869,  and  located  in  an  im- 
posing building  in  the  heart  of  Pera.  The  majority  of  its 
seven  hundred  students  are  Mussulmans,  but  ecpial  facili- 
ties are  afforded  to  all,  irrespective  of  religion  and  race. 
Though  in  this  polyglot  empire,  languages  constitute  an 
essential  and  leading  part  in  a  young  man's  education,  yet 
there  are  comprehensive  courses  in  the  various  branches, 
of  science,  in  mathematics,  literature,  history,  and  philos- 
ophy. The  college  perpetuates  the  name  of  Galata  Serai, 
or  Palace  of  Galata,  first  erected  in  the  fifteenth  century 
on  the  same  site  by  Bayezid  II.  At  that  time  all  the  re- 
gion north  of  the  Golden  Horn  was  called  Galata  by  the 
Ottomans.     Under  Souleiman  I,  the  reconstructed  palace 

VOL.  I.  —  8 


114  CONS  1\  1 XTJXOPLE 

served  as  a  training-school  for  the  itcholans,  or  imperial 
pages  ;  and  the  chief  instruction  given  was  "  to  read,  write, 
ride,  draw  the  bow,  and  chant  devotions."  Burnt  down 
in  1831,  and  again  in  1819,  the  present  magnificent  edifice 
was  at  once  erected. 

To  enumerate  all  the  other  institutions  existing  in  Pera 
for  young  men,  would  be  to  draw  up  a  bewildering  and 
lengthy  catalogue  of  foreign  names.  The  name  college 
is  applied  to  various  establishments,  differing  largely  from 
one  another  in  their  curriculum,  but  almost  all  well  con- 
ducted and  affording  a  good  education.  Some  are  at- 
tached to  foreign  Church  Missions ;  some  are  built  upon 
private  liberality,  and  others  are  the  speculations  of  pri- 
vate enterprise. 

The  colleges  and  high  schools  in  Pera  for  young  women 
merit  special  and  separate  mention,  both  from  the  promi- 
nence of  the  subject  and  from  the  distinguished  esteem  in 
which  they  are  now  held  by  the  general  public.  The  im- 
portance, the  necessity,  of  a  high  education  for  women  is 
to-day  recognized  by  every  Christian  community  in  Con- 
stantinople ;  such  universal  recognition  is  a  striking  fact. 
A  generation  ago,  any  like  idea  did  not  exist  or  was  ig- 
nored. In  Pera,  as  in  America,  it  is  not  thirty  years  since 
equal  education  for  the  son  and  daughter  was  scoffed  at 
as  an  absurdity  or  feared  as  an  experiment.  In  Pera  as 
in  America,  the  problem  has  been  solved  with  no  less  sat- 
isfactory results. 

In  this  onward  march  the  Greeks  have  led  the  van. 
Their  young  ladies'  colleges,  the  Zappeion  and  the  Pallas, 
have  already  exercised  immense  influence  in  the  develop- 
ment of  female  culture.  These  institutions  are  an  honor 
to  the  race  by  which  they  were  founded  and  to  the  phi- 
lanthropists  by   whom   they   were   generously   endowed. 


RUSSIAN    CHURCH    OF    SAINT    NICOLAS 


116  0  ONSTANTINOPLE 

Additional  to  the  thorough  and  systematic  course  of 
study  pursued  within  their  walls,  the  Zappeion  especially 
is  architecturally  one  of  the  noblest  monuments  of 
Pera. 

Adjacent  to  the  Armenian  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity 
is  the  Arvestanotz,  a  kind  of  practical  Polytechnic  School 
for  young  Armenian  women.  Founded  by  the  sagacious 
philanthropy  of  an  Armenian  gentleman,  administered  by 
an  efficient  corps,  thoroughly  organized  and  equipped,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  cite  an  institution  more  praiseworthy 
in  its  object  and  more  excellent  in  its  results. 

The  School  of  Notre  Dame  de  Sion,  on  the  outskirts  of 
Pera,  conducted  by  the  ladies  of  that  venerable  sisterhood, 
has  both  a  preparatory  and  an  academic  course ;  its  stu- 
dents may  pass  directly  from  it  to  the  highest  professional 
schools  of  Paris.  Valuable  and  varied  as  is  the  mental 
training  it  affords,  it  aims  especially  at  the  cultivation  of 
character  and  of  womanly  grace.  Many  of  the  most  refined 
and  best-educated  ladies  of  Pera  enjoyed  its  advantages. 

The  Armeno-Catholic  college  at  Pera,  belonging  to  the 
Society  Hamaskiatz,  and  the  school  of  the  Franciscan  Sis- 
ters of  Saint  Mary  deserve  honorable  mention.  In  all 
these  institutions,  by  whomsoever  founded,  marked  promi- 
nence is  given  to  religious  instruction.  Very  great  atten- 
tion is  of  course  devoted  to  the  languages.  Instrumental 
and  vocal  music  are  always  well  taught ;  at  the  same  time 
the  less  showy  and  more  solid  branches  hold  their  appro- 
priate place. 

Schools  of  preparatory  and  intermediate  grade  abound 
for  boys  or  girls  or  for  both  together.  From  immemorial 
custom  such  a  school  is  connected  with  every  Armenian  or 
Greek  church,  not  only  in  Pera,  but  throughout  the  capital. 
No  matter  how  poor  the  parish  or  how  few  the  families. 


THE    GOLDEN  HORN  117 

if  there  be  a  church,  the  school  is  sure  to  he  found  near 
by.  The  foreign  residents  or  their  legations  have  been 
equally  solicitous  for  their  own  children,  and  each  among 
the  European  nationalities  is  well  provided. 

Literary,  musical,  scientific,  and  philanthropic  societies 
and  clubs  are  numerous.  Some  are  cosmopolitan  in  their 
membership ;  others  are  limited  to  a  single  nationality. 
Pre-eminent  among  them  all  is  the  Hellenic  Philologic 
Syllogos.  The  main  object  of  this  society  is  research, 
whether  archaeological,  literary,  or  scientific.  Discussion 
and  investigation  are  encouraged  in  all  fields,  save  those 
of  politics  and  religion  ;  the  latter  subjects  are  wisely  ex- 
cluded from  a  body  representative  of  different  races  and 
creeds.  The  majority  of  its  thirteen  hundred  members 
are  Greeks,  but  on  its  roll  are  also  the  names  of  many 
distinguished  foreigners ;  among  them,  six  Americans. 
The  language  commonly  employed  at  its  sessions  is  Greek 
or  French.  The  publications  of  the  Syllogos  are  many 
and  varied.  Of  especial  value  are  its  published  investiga- 
tions of  mediaeval  monuments  and  records.  Its  library  of 
sixteen  thousand  volumes,  mainly  archaeological,  is  con- 
stantly increasing.  This  syllogos  is  the  parent  of  many 
other  syllogoi  throughout  the  Ottoman  Empire.  It  has 
also  contributed  much  to  the  preparation  of  text-books 
and  the  founding  of  schools.  Its  first  hall,  with  library 
and  precious  collections,  having  been  destroyed  by  fire, 
in  1870,  the  present  elegant  and  commodious  building- 
was  erected  the  following  year.  Altogether  this  society 
deserves  its  wide  and  most  honorable  reputation. 

The  remote  outskirts  of  Pera,  stretching  still  farther 
northward,  have  of  late  received  distinctive  names.  Tata- 
vola  and  San  Dimitri,  inhabited  almost  exclusively  by 
Greeks,  are  justly  famed  for  the  beauty  of  their  women. 


118  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Nowhere  in  the  East  is  the  classic  type  more  often  seen. 
Byzantios  says  with  reason,  "  Apelles  and  Phidias  might 
here  have  chosen  the  models  of  their  fairest  creations." 
Pancaldi  contains  the  Catholic  Cathedral,  an  impressive 
edifice  planted  on  a  most  unfortunate  situation.  Ferikeui 
and  Chichli  evoke  but  the  single  memory  of  death  and 
graves.  There  are  the  chief  cemeteries  of  the  Catholic. 
Protestant,  and  Orthodox  Greek  communities.  In  the 
Protestant  cemetery,  all  the  nations  holding  to  the  Re- 
formed religion,  —  Germany,  Holland,  Great  Britain,  the 
Scandinavian  States,  the  United  States,  —  each  hi  its 
allotted  section,  inter  their  dead,  side  by  side. 


VI 
THE   BOSPHORUS 

There  is  perhaps  no  locality  in  the  world  surrounded  by  so  many  his- 
torical souvenirs,  and  adorned  with  so  many  varied  gifts  of  Nature,  as  the 
imposing  and  picturesque  strait  across  which  the  waves  of  the  Euxine  Sea 
precipitate  themselves  toward  the  Mediterranean,  bathing  with  the  same 
billow  the  shores  of  Europe  and  the  shores  of  Asia.  —  Tchihatcheff. 

The  Thracian  Bosphorus,  from  whatever  point  of  view  we  regard  it,  is  of 
exhaustless  interest.  —  Professor  C'earke. 

There  God  and  Man,  Nature  and  Art,  have  together  created  and  placed 
the  most  marvellous  point  of  view  which  the  human  eye  can  contemplate 
upon  earth.  —  Lamartine. 

Upon  this  planet  there  is  no  other  stream  so  wonderful :  its  equal  can  be 
found  only,  if  at  all,  upon  some  other  star.  —  Professor  Park. 

N  no  fitter  words  can  I  commence  this  chapter 
than  with  such  citations.  They  are  the  utter- 
ances of  men  who  have  studied  the  science, 
and  thrilled  with  the  history,  and  gazed 
enraptured  upon  the  face  of  the  Bos- 
phorus. The  first  was  a  leader  among 
Slavic  scientists ;  the  second,  one  of  the 
most  renowned  English  university  professors ;  the  third, 
a  French  poet,  historian,  statesman ;  the  fourth  is  a  pro- 
found and  revered  American  theologian.  With  equal 
admiration,  and  almost  equal  eloquence,  they  pay  the 
tribute  of  their  homage  to  this  incomparable  stream. 

Hundreds  of  other  writers  have  as  graphically  united 
vividness  and  truth  in  their  references  to  the  Bosphorus. 
It  has  often  been  described  with  painstaking  and  minute 
research  since  that  early,  first  narration,  composed  so  well 


120  CONSTANTINOPLE 

by  Dionysios,  of  Byzantium,  nineteen  centuries  ago.  Yet 
no  author  lias  accomplished  more,  or  could  accomplish 
more,  than  unsatisfactory  indication  of  some  of  the  more 
prominent  features  —  aesthetic,  scientific,  historic,  archaeo- 
louic  —  along;  its  crowded  shores.  Enthusiasm  and  learn- 
ing  may  alike  be  baffled,  because  there  is  so  much  from 
which  to  choose.  Whoever  undertakes  its  delineation 
must  be  painfully  self-conscious  at  the  start  that  his  omis- 
sions will  be  manifold  more  than  all  he  says.  For, 
although 

"The  world  is  rich  in  streams, 
Renowned  in  song  and  story, 
Whose  waters  murmur  to  our  dreams 
Of  human  love  and  glory, " 

there  is  not  one  among  them  all  which  rivals  the 
Bosphorus. 

To  its  associations  it  owes  in  part  its  undisputed  pre- 
eminence. There  is  hardly  a  nation  of  the  civilized  world 
whose  blood  has  not  mingled  with  its  waters.  There  is 
hardly  a  faith,  hardly  a  heresy,  which,  by  the  devotion  of 
its  adherents  and  martyrs,  has  not  hallowed  its  banks. 
Associations  the  most  dissimilar,  the  most  incongruous, 
the  most  distant,  elbow  one  another  in  its  every  hamlet 
and  village.  The  German  Emperor,  William  II,  in  1889 
disembarks  at  the  same  spot  which  tradition  makes  the 
landing-place  of  that  other  youthful  leader,  Jason,  with 
his  Argonauts,  in  that  sublime  voyage  of  the  fourteenth 
century  before  Christ. 

The  story  of  the  Bosphorus  is  mythologic  and  historic ; 
pre-classic,  classic,  mediaeval,  and  modern ;  Pagan,  Chris- 
tian, and  Mussulman  ;  transmitted  and  preserved  in  every 
form  —  legend,   fable,   tradition,   poem,   telegram  —  from 


THE  BOSPHORUS  121 

before  the  birth  of  Herodotus  and  Homer  down  to  the 
newspaper  of  to-day.  The  past  seems  the  present ;  the 
present  the  past.  Fable  seems  fact,  and  reality,  romance, 
all  equally  real  or  unreal  in  narration  of  its  record. 

Past  to  the  present  makes  full  restitution, 

Ages  are  fused  to  consecutive  years; 
Races  are  wed  in  one  mighty  confusion, 

Byzas  and  Mahmoud  clasp  hands  as  compeers. 

An  error  of  one  hundred  years,  five  hundred  years,  in  its 
chronology  half  appears  a  trivial  matter,  for,  in  the  over- 
flowing, immortal  history  of  the  Bosphorus,  a  thousand 
years  are  but  a  day. 

The  ancients  derived  the  name  from  a  legend  of  the 
Olympian  gods.  Zeus,  omnipotent  against  all  other,  could 
not  protect  his  mistress  Io  from  the  tireless  pursuit  of  his 
jealous  wife.  Persecuted  from  land  to  land,  Io  reached 
the  eastern  shore  of  the  strait.  There,  transformed  into 
a  cow,  she  plunged  into  the  current,  swam  across  in 
safety,  and  hid  in  the  recesses  of  the  Golden  Horn.  Thus 
the  story  of  her  suffering  and  daring  passage  is  preserved 
in  the  word  Bosphorus,  Bosporos,  the  Ford,  or  Crossing,  of 
the  Cow. 

The  fancy  of  the  classic  writers  bestowed  upon  it  many 
other  names.  Philostratos  called  it  Ekbolai,  or  Mouth  of 
the  Black  Sea  ;  Euripides,  the  Kleides,  or  Keys  ;  Aristides, 
the  Thyrai,  or  Doors ;  and  Herodotus,  the  Auchen,  or 
Throat.  To  the  Byzantines  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  to 
many  Greeks  to-day,  it  was  the  Katastenon,  or  Narrows ; 
to  the  Crusaders,  the  Arm  of  Saint  George ;  to  its  present 
Ottoman  masters,  Boghaz,  or  the  Throat.  Nor  is  its  fre- 
quent title  among  modern  geographers  inappropriate,  — 
the  Canal,  or  Strait,  of  Constantinople.     But  its  common, 


122  CONSTANTINOPLE 

world-familiar  appellation  of  the  Bosphorus  doubtless 
antedates  the  legend  of  Zeus  and  Io.  and  is  older  than 
mythology.  So  doubtless  will  it  outlast  all  its  other 
names,  even  as  it  has  survived  the  discrowned,  forgotten 
gods  of  ( )lympus. 

In  its  swift  flow  it  is  a  river,  and  in  its  depth  a  sea  ; 
vet  many  a  sea  is  less  profound,  and  many  a  river  spreads 
with  a  wider  breadth,  and  pours  with  a  less  rapid  current. 
Its  average  depth  from  shore  to  shore  between  the  Black 
Sea  and  the  Marmora,  as  obtained  by  eight  hundred  and 
thirty-two  soundings,  is  eighty-eight  and  three-fifths  feet. 
At  no  point  is  the  depth  of  the  main  channel  less  than 
twenty-four  and  one-half  fathoms.  Off  Yenikeui  and 
Therapia,  fai  up  the  Bosphorus,  its  bed  is  fifty-three  fath- 
oms, and  off  Candili,  sixty-six  fathoms  below  the  surface 
of  the  water.  The  lateral  zones  of  the  main  channel  are 
nowhere  less  than  six  feet  deep,  and  at  many  places  over 
two  hundred. 

So  sharply  do  its  submarine  banks  descend,  that  large 
vessels,  hugging  the  land  too  closely,  though  in  deep 
water,  often  run  their  bowsprits  and  yards  into  houses  on 
the  shore.  Many  a  shipmaster  has  paid  damages  for  such 
unceremonious  intrusion,  not  only  of  his  rigging,  but  of 
his  sailors,  into  drawing-rooms  and  chambers  along  the 
Bosphorus.  I  remember,  when  making  a  good-by  call 
upon  an  English  lady  at  Candili.  her  matter-of-fact  apol- 
ogy for  the  torn  casements  of  the  windows  and  the  dis- 
ordered appearance  of  the  room.  She  said  that  a  Greek 
vessel  ran  into  the  house  that  morning,  and  that  the  car- 
penters had  not  conic  to  make  repairs. 

The  Bosphorus  contains  few  dangerous  submarine  rocks 
or  shoals.  The  locality  of  these  few  is  indicated  by  light- 
houses or  buoys.     The  water  is  only  slightly  tinged  with 


THE  BOSPHORUS  123 

salt,  and  is  marvellously  clear.     The  .sands,  glittering  ap- 
parently near  the  surface,  may  be  twenty  feet  below. 

On  a  map  of  whatever  scale,  each  of  those  familiar 
straits,  which  cleave  lands  and  continents  asunder,  seems 
hardly  more  than  a  silvery  thread.  Yet,  as  one  sails  over 
their  famous  waters,  the  opposing  shores  on  either  hand 
sometimes  appear  far  away.  The  Strait  of  Gibraltar, 
which  wrests  Africa  from  Europe,  is  sixteen  miles  wide  ; 
that  of  Messina,  forcing  its  way  between  Italy  and  Sicily, 
is  from  two  to  twelve ;  that  of  Bonifacio,  which,  like  a 
blade  of  steel,  cuts  Corsica  and  Sardinia  apart,  is  seven 
miles  in  width  at  its  most  contracted  point;  even  the 
Dardanelles  expands  from  over  one  mile  to  four. 

But  the  illusion  as  to  distances,  created  by  the  map,  is 
reality  as  to  the  Bosphorus.  Off  Buyoukdereh,  where  it 
attains  its  largest  breadth,  its  hemmecl-in  waters  broaden 
to  only  nine  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty-eight  feet, 
or  about  one  and  four-fifths  miles.  Between  Roumeli 
Hissar  and  Anadoli  Hissar,  they  shrink  to  one-sixth  of 
these  dimensions,  or  to  sixteen  hundred  and  forty-one 
feet. 

Its  general  direction  is  north,  northeast,  and  south, 
southwest.  Its  length  from  Seraglio  Point  to  a  line 
stretched  between  the  two  lighthouses  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Black  Sea  is  sixteen  and  one-sixth  miles.  But  its 
course  is  so  broken,  and  so  shut  in  by  hills,  that  it  resem- 
bles an  inland  lake  rather  than  a  river  or  strait.  The 
European  bank  is  nineteen  and  one-cpiarter  miles  long, 
and  the  Asiatic  twenty-three  and  two-thirds.  Throughout 
their  entire  length,  the  two  shores  maintain  a  striking 
parallel.  Where  one  bank  is  straight,  the  opposite  is  the 
same.  Each  convex  bend  on  the  European  side  finds  a 
concave  indentation  on  the  Asiatic.     Each  European  bay 


124  CONSTANTINOPLE 

is  answered  by  a  corresponding  Asiatic  promontory.    Eight 

promontories  thus  advance  boldly  toward  eight  retiring, 
tin  ion  ins  bays. 

This  startling  conformity  of  outline,  this  rough  adjust- 
ment of  shore  to  shore,  carries  imagination  backward 
across  countless  ages  to  the  time  when  titanic  forces  here 
rent  Europe  and  Asia  asunder.  The  awe-stricken  ancients 
handed  down  the  tradition  of  how  the  pent-up,  resistless 
waters  of  the  Black  Sea  tore  through  valleys,  and  levelled 
mountains,  in  their  sudden,  southward  rush  toward  the 
Mediterranean.  The  Cyanean  Islands  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Black  Sea.  and  the  entire  upper  Bosphorus,  hear  unan- 
swerable testimony  to  their  volcanic  origin. 

The  Bosphorus  never  feels  the  influence  of  tides.  From 
the  vast  bosom  of  the  Mediterranean  the  evaporation  is 
enormous.  The  contribution  of  its  rivers,  moreover,  is 
small  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  mighty  streams 
which  deluge  the  Black  Sea.  So  here  the  flow  southward 
is  constant. 

"Like  to  the  Pontic  Sea, 
Whose  icy  current  and  compulsive  course 
iSTe'er  feels  retiring  ebb,  but  keeps  due  on 
To  the  Propontic  and  the  Hellespont." 

The  current  sometimes  attains  a  velocity  of  four,  and 
even  Ave,  miles  an  hour.  So  violently  does  it  rush  by 
the  promontories  of  Arnaoutkeui  and  Roumeli  Hissar 
that  the  strongest  boatmen  are  unable  to  row  against  it. 
This  has  given  rise  to  a  peculiar  guild,  or  craft,  —  the 
yedekdjis,  —  whose  whole  business  consists  in  towing  ves- 
sels up  the  stream. 

Yet.  despite  the  swiftness  of  its  current,  Tchihatcheff, 
than  whom  no  scientist  is  more  careful  and  exact,  asserts 


THE  BOSPHORUS  125 

that  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Golden  Horn  have  seventeen 
times  been  partially  or  entirely  frozen  over  since  330. 
Zonaras,  once  commander  of  the  Imperial  Guard,  and 
finally  an  ascetic  monk  at  Mount  Athos,  says  that  in  755 
u  whoever  wished,  walked  from  Chrysopolis  (Scutari)  to 
Galata  without  hindrance  as  upon  dry  land."  The  Pa- 
triarch Nikephoros  I,  "a  man  most  holy,"  declares  that  in 
762,  when  he  was  a  youth,  "  people  traversed  the  strait 
more  easily  on  foot  than  formerly  in  a  boat."  During 
the  reign  of  Osman  II,  in  1621,  bullock  teams  crossed 
upon  the  ice  from  Asia  to  Europe.  The  devout  Mussul- 
mans attributed  the  rigor  of  that  winter  to  the  aversion  of 
Allah  for  the  boy  Sultan.  During  the  present  century, 
both  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Golden  Horn  were  skimmed 
over  with  ice  in  1823,  as  was  also  the  Golden  Horn  in 
1849  and  1862. 

By  a  strange  phenomenon,  if  the  south  wind  prevails, 
the  superficial  current  is  reversed,  though  the  inferior 
current  continues  its  accustomed  course.  Then  the  waters 
on  the  surface  are  piled  tumultuously  back  upon  one 
another,  and  the  quays,  which  are  several  feet  above  the 
ordinary  Bosphorus  level,  are  flooded  and  perhaps  made 
impassable.  At  such  times  caiques  and  smaller  boats  do 
not  dare  to  venture  upon  the  tempestuous  surface. 

Sometimes  a  strong  wind  blows  northward  from  the 
Marmora,  and  another  wind  as  strong  blows  with  equal 
violence  southward  from  the  Black  Sea.  Then,  as  one 
gazes  from  some  central  point  like  Roumeli  Ilissar,  he 
beholds  ships  under  full  sail  majestically  approaching  each 
other  from  both  directions  till  at  last  they  are  only  two 
or  three  miles  apart.  Between  them  lies  a  belt  of  move- 
less sea,  into  which  they  are  forced  and  on  which  they 
drift  helplessly  about  and  perhaps  crash  into  each  other's 


1  -2  6  CONSTANTINOPLE 

sides.  This  is  a  duel  royal  between  Boreas  and  Notus,  and 
may  continue  for  hours.  Gradually  the  zone  of  calm  is 
forced  north  or  south.  At  last  one  wind  withdraws  like 
a  defeated  champion  from  the  arena.  The  ships  which 
it  has  brought  thus  far,  drop  their  anchors  and  wait,  or 
else  hire  one  of  the  numerous  steam-tugs  which  are  pad- 
dling expectantly  about.  The  ships  which  have  come 
with  the  victorious  wind  triumphantly  resume  then- 
course,  and  meanwhile  their  sailors  mock  and  jeer  their 
fellow-mariners,  whose  breeze  has  failed  them.1 

Of  all  its  many  descriptive  epithets,  ancient  and  modern, 
none  have  clung  with  more  persistent  tenacity  than  the 
simple,  early  adjective  of  "fishy"  Bosphorus.  Seventy 
edible  varieties  of  fish,  familiar  to  connoisseurs,  sport  in 
its  waters.  Some  have  their  permanent  haunts  within 
the  stream.  The  most  are  migratory.  The  instinct  of 
the  seasons  moves  them  northward  or  southward  with  the 
birds.  The  strait  is  their  only  possible  highway  between 
the  Black  Sea  and  the  Mediterranean,  their  summer  and 
winter  homes.  From  March  until  June  and  from  August 
to  December,  men.  poised  in  the  quaint  perches  high  on 
piles  above  the  water,  and  constantly  on  the  outlook,  watch 
for  the  flash  of  their  gliding  forms.  The  various  fishy 
tribes,  at  intervals  of  days  and  in  countless  shoals,  succeed 
one  another.  The  watchers,  trained  by  long  experience 
with  sharp  eyes  pierce  the  crystal  depths  and  know 
what  fish  are  passing  or  are  almost  come.  Then,  the 
signal  given,  every  advantageous  spot  is  quickly  black- 
ened over  with  hundreds  of  fishing-boats,  and  their  gen- 
erous harvest  never  fails. 

1  The  average  annual  temperature  of  the  water  is  about  1-^°  Fahren- 
heit higher  than  tliat  of  the  air.  In  winter,  it  is  14^°  higher;  in  spring, 
summer,  and  autumn,  it  is  31°,  4°,  and  lf°  less. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  127 

Would  some  Izaak  Walton  ask  what  are  the  classes  and 
the  habits  of  the  swimming  creatures,  which  thus  to-day 
within  the  Bosphoras  fall  victims  to  the  hook  or  spear  or 
net  ?  All  this  Aristotle  best  describes  in  his  treatise  upon 
the  "  Fishes,"  which  he  wrote  more  than  two  thousand, 
two  hundred  years  ago. 

Along  both  shores  extends  a  line  of  mosques,  palaces, 
and  humbler  dwellings,  which  are  cut  from  the  water  by 
a  narrow  quay.  This  fringe  of  habitations  broadens  into 
many  a  village,  which  clambers  like  ivy  along  the  hill- 
sides and  pushes  in  amphrtheatric  form  up  the  ravines.  On 
the  European  side  this  succession  of  adjacent  edifices  is 
almost  continuous  till  within  five  miles  of  its  northern 
extremity.  The  Asiatic  side  is  less  densely  populated : 
here  a  tiny  plain,  or  a  grove  of  trees,  or  a  projecting  cliff, 
cuts  the  continuity  of  its  houses. 

After  the  last  northward  bend  of  the  Bosphorus  the 
whole  aspect  changes.  As  if  to  mark  the  sudden  transi- 
tion, Giant's  Mountain,  six  hundred  and  sixty  feet  in 
height,  the  loftiest  elevation  on  the  strait,  rises  abruptly 
from  the  water,  and  dominates  the  view.  Up  to  this  point 
every  natural  feature  has  embodied  the  perfection  of  calm 
though  varied  beauty,  humanized  by  the  homes  of  men. 
Now,  beyond,  the  villages  become  rare  and  the  houses 
scattered,  and  man  and  nature  appear  appalled  by  the 
nearness  of  the  Black  Sea.  Frowning  and  precipitous 
cliffs,  their  faces  whitened  and  polished,  beaten  smooth 
in  storm  and  winter  by  thunderous  waves,  form  the 
appropriate  portal  through  which  one  enters  that  tremen- 
dous sea,  so  awful  to  the  ancients,  and  so  justly  dreaded 
now. 


128  CONSTANTINOPLE 


THE  EUROPEAN   SHORE   OF  THE  BOSPHORUS 

To  merely  recapitulate  the  successive  names  which  in 
different  centuries  have  been  borne  by  each  bay  or  head- 
land or  human  settlement  upon  the  Bosphorus,  would  fill 
pages  with  a  polyglot  and  heterogeneous  list.  Around 
each  cluster  the  multiform  and  accumulated  legend, 
history,  and  association  of  more  than  three  thousand 
years.  As  I  begin  to  conduct  the  reader's  fancy  along 
the  European  shore  to  the  Cyanean  Islands  and  the  Black 
Sea,  and  thence  hi  a  parallel  excursion  southward  along 
the  Asiatic  shore,  I  realize  how  superficial  must  be  the 
attempt. 

"Not  lighter  does  the  swallow  skim 
Along  the  smooth  lake's  level  brim  " 

than  must  be  the  rapid  glance  we  cast,  while  everywhere 
there  is  so  much  to  bid  us  linger. 

The  junction  of  the  Golden  Horn  and  Bosphorus  was 
formerly  indicated  by  an  elongated  and  narrow  bay  on  the 
east  of  Galata.  This  bay  has  been  filled  up  by  the  Otto- 
mans. The  grimy,  though  impressive  Mosque  of  Kilidj 
Ali  Pasha,  the  dingy  fountain  of  Achmet  I,  and  the  Artil- 
lery Esplanade,  embellished  by  Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz,  mark 
its  site.  Close  by  is  the  elegant  Mosque  of  Mahmoud  II, 
erected  in  thank-offering  to  God  for  the  destruction  of  the 
janissaries.  The  locality  is  now  called  Top  Khaneh,  or 
the  Cannon  Foundry,  from  the  extensive  works  that 
stretch  along  the  strait. 

Here  in  1701  a  splendid  palace  was  constructed  by  the 
fierce  Kapoudan  Pasha,  Houssem  Mezzomorto.  This 
daring  sea-rover  had  been  during  seventeen  years  a  chained 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


130  CONSTANTINOPLE 

galley-slave  on  a  Christian  vessel.  When  at  last  he 
obtained  his  freedom,  his  all-absorbing  passion  was  to  pay 
back  to  the  Christians  what  he  had  suffered  during  his 
captivity.  Once,  after  a  desperate  battle,  in  which  he  had 
performed  prodigies  of  valor,  he  was  left  for  dead.  Re- 
stored to  life,  he  received  the  sobriquet  of  Mezzomorto. 
He  conquered  Scio,  three  times  defeated  the  Venetians, 
and  made  the  Christians  tremble  at  his  name.  When 
appointed  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Ottoman  navies, 
he  stipulated  that,  even  when  received  in  solemn  audience 
by  his  sovereign,  he  should  never  be  required  to  wear 
anything  save  a  common  sailor's  usual  suit.  So,  while 
the  other  pashas  glittered  in  silk  and  gold,  Mezzomorto 
was  the  plainest  dressed  and  most  distinguished  of  all. 

The  various  names  of  the  next  city  quarter  well  illus- 
trate how  cycles  in  the  life  of  the  Bosphorus  overlap  one 
another.  The  Ottomans  call  it  Salih  Bazar,  the  Tuesday 
Market,  because  on  that  day  itinerant  merchants  here 
bring;  their  wares  for  sale.  Its  earliest  name  was  Aian- 
teion,  from  a  temple  which  the  Megarians  raised  to  a  hero 
of  the  Trojan  War,  Ajax  Telamon.  In  the  time  of  Christ 
it  was  Elaion,  the  Olive  Orchard ;  also  Palinormion,  the 
Place  of  the  Returning,  inasmuch  as  a  colony  which  had 
set  out  was  forced  by  an  adverse  wind  to  come  back  here  ; 
and  sometimes  Sponde,  the  Spot  where  the  solemn  drink- 
offering  was  anciently  poured  out. 

All  this  region  was  converted  by  Soule'iman  I  into  a 
magnificent  private  garden.  Thus  he  assured  himself  a 
delightful  view  from  Seraglio  Point,  and  made  certain  that 
no  prying  eye,  gazing  southward  across  the  strait,  should 
penetrate  the  secrecy  of  the  seraglio.  The  Palace  of 
Mahmoud  I,  Nessat,  or  the  House  of  Mirth,  the  Palace 
of  Damat  Ibrahim  Pasha,  Emn  Abad,  or  the  Habitation  of 


THE  BOSPHORUS  131 

Safety,  like  the  luxuriant  garden,  long  ago  entirely 
disappeared. 

On  the  place  where  they  stood,  close  to  the  shore,  are 
now  two  palaces,  absolutely  alike,  it  is  said,  in  every 
detail.  They  were  erected  by  Mahmoud  I  for  two  nieces 
whom  he  loved  equally.  To  prevent  possible  jealousy, 
these  palaces  on  their  completion  were  assigned  to  their 
new  possessors  by  lot.  A  dispute  as  to  whether  the  lots 
were  fairly  drawn  alienated  the  sisters,  and  brought  to 
naught  the  carefully  devised  precaution  of  their  imperial 
uncle. 

In  626,  the  Avars,  then  besieging  Constantinople,  came 
to  this  point  and  kindled  signal-fires  for  their  Persian  allies, 
who  were  then  encamped  in  Scutari.  But  as  neither  party 
possessed  ships  or  the  materials  from  which  to  make  them, 
both  remained  in  impotent  fury  upon  their  respective  sides, 
and  were  unable  to  effect  a  junction.  Here  then  stood 
the  memorable  Church  of  the  Maccabees,  or  the  Church  in 
the  Olives,  which  Constantine  had  rebuilt  in  the  form  of 
a  cross,  and  which,  until  near  his  death,  he  intended  should 
be  his  mausoleum.  It  was  first  erected  in  the  second 
century,  and  under  four  bishops  was  the  Episcopal  See. 
Inland,  high  on  a  superb  site,  may  still  be  seen  the  Mosque 
of  Djeanghir,  which  Souleiman  consecrated  to  the  memory 
of  a  beloved  son. 

To  the  neighboring  quarter  of  Fundoukli  the  pleasure- 
loving  Mohammed  IV  frequently  came  on  a  visit  to 
Housse'in  Agha  Fundoukli,  a  wealthy  Ottoman,  who  died 
over  two  hundred  years  ago.  The  Sultan  would  spend  the 
entire  day  in  fishing  from  the  palace  windows  of  his  host, 
which  overhung  the  Bosphorus.  The  captives  of  his  line, 
the  Sultan  usually  sent  as  a  high  distinction  to  his  favor- 
ites.    Each  such  remembrance  was  a  costly  honor,  for  the 


132  CONST  J  NTINOPLE 

privileged  recipient  was  required  by  etiquette  to  present 
the  bearer  according  to  his  rank  with  at  least  a  hundred 
piastres  a  fish,  and  often  with  five  times  as  much.  Here 
in  classic  times  was  a  heroon  of  the  Egyptian  king, 
Ptolemy  Philadelphos,  whom  the  Byzantines  gratefully 
revered  for  assistance  afforded  them  during  siege  and 
famine.  The  jutting  point  of  land,  under  its  classic  name 
of  Delphis,  or  the  Dolphin,  and  Charonda,  reminded  of  the 
legend  of  the  shepherd  Glial kis.  So  divinely  did  he  play 
the  lyre  that  every  day  a  dolphin  came  to  listen,  lifting 
its  head  in  ecstasy  from  the  water.  Charondas,  another 
shepherd,  envious  of  Chalkis's  music,  killed  his  pet.  The 
sorrowing  musician  built  a  monument,  and  inscribed  upon 
it  the  words,  Delphis  and  Charondas. 

Here,  according  to  a  tradition  so  attested  as  to  seem 
authentic  history,  Saint  Andrew  came  preaching  Chris- 
tianity three  years  after  the  Crucifixion.  Weaving  into 
the  sacred  story  "  the  golden  woof-thread  of  romance," 
the  Byzantine  Christians  loved  to  tell  that  the  Bosphorus 
reminded  the  Apostle  of  his  native  Galilee,  and  that  the 
first  company  which  met  to  hear  him  was  made  up  of 
fishermen  like  himself.  Here  he  remained  two  years,  and 
consecrated  Stachys,  the  "  beloved "  of  Saint  Paul,  first 
Bishop  of  Byzantium,  and  organized  a  church,  from  which 
the  Eastern  Orthodox  Church  with  its  hundred  million 
communicants  has  grown.  After  the  Conquest  the  Otto- 
mans appropriated  to  themselves  all  the  more  command- 
ing and  desirable  locations,  expelling  from  them  the 
Greeks.  So,  of  necessity,  the  Christians  abandoned  Fun- 
doukli  with  its  sacred  memories,  and  from  that  time  it 
has  been  only  Moslem.  It  is  crowded  with  mosques  and 
dervish  tekiehs,  but  has  not  a  single  Christian  church. 

After  Fundoukli   comes  Kabatash,  the   Rugged  Stone. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  133 

In  its  long-ago  ruined  breakwater,  vestiges  of  which  may 
still  be  seen,  the  ships  of  Rhodes  used  to  anchor,  and 
hence  the  place  was  commonly  called  the  Port  of  the 
Rhodians. 

All  the  way  thus  far,  a  steep  and  beetling  hill,  packed 
on  its  side  and  summit  with  sombre  wooden  houses,  has 
formed  the  picturesque  background  of  the  narrow  shore. 
Now  the  hill  recedes,  and  the  luxuriant  valley  of  Dolma 
Baghtcheh  takes  its  place.  This  valley  was  once  a  deep 
inlet  of  the  Bosphorus,  and  its  principal  harbor  on  the 
west.  On  its  southern  bank  rose  a  temple  of  Apollo. 
Here,  according  to  the  legend,  the  Scythian  Tauros  moored 
his  galley  of  fifty  oars  and  worshipped  in  the  temple  when, 
like  a  knight-errant  of  mythology,  he  was  on  his  way  to 
Crete  to  rescue  the  imprisoned  Pasiphae  from  her  relent- 
less husband,  Minos.  Jasonian  was  the  ordinary  name  of 
the  harbor  among  the  ancient  Greeks,  from  the  current 
tradition  that  here  Jason  and  the  heroes  of  the  "  Argo  " 
disembarked.  Here,  too,  in  1203  the  soldiers  of  the  Fourth 
Crusade,  who  had  sailed  across  from  Scutari,  furiously 
sprang  from  their  ships  into  the  sea  and  charged  the 
Greek  army,  drawn  up  sixty  thousand  strong  along  the 
shore.  "  And  know  ye,"  says  Villehardouin,  himself  in 
the  fray,  "  that  never  was  harbor  more  proudly  taken." 

Here,  during  the  final  siege,  were  anchored  the  ships  of 
Mohammed  II,  all  alike  rendered  useless  by  the  impassable 
chain  that  closed  the  entrance  to  the  Golden  Horn.  De- 
spite the  enormous  host  which  besieged  the  city  on  its 
western  side,  Ottoman's  success  at  best  was  doubtful  as 
long  as  the  Golden  Horn  was  held  by  the  Greeks.  That 
chain  it  was  impossible  to  break,  and  the  discouraged 
Ottomans  confessed  that,  however  great  their  numbers, 
on    the    sea  they  could  not   cope  with   the   Giaours.     A 


1 34  CONSTANTINOPLE 

leader  less  ingenious,  or  possessed  of  fewer  resources  than 
the  persistent  Sultan,  would  have  despaired. 

The  genius  and  audacity  of  Mohammed  inspired  him 
with  a  daring  plan.  He  resolved  to  transport  his  galleys 
over  the  solid  land  and  launch  them  from  the  hills  into 
those  very  waters,  from  which  the  well-defended  chain 
had  so  far  shut  them  out.  He  ordered  a  broad  plank 
highway  to  he  constructed  from  the  inner  extremity  of  the 
harbor  up  the  ravine,  over  the  level  top  of  the  plateau, 
and  down  the  ravine  of  Kassim  Pasha  on  the  other  side 
of  Galata.  Immense  quantities  of  oil  and  grease  were 
poured  upon  the  wooden  road  to  render  its  smooth  surface 
still  more  slippery.  Hundreds  of  rollers  were  prepared. 
Sixty-eight  ships,  with  sails  spread  to  catch  the  favoring 
breeze,  were  drawn  in  a  single  night  by  long  files  of 
soldiers  on  rollers  to  the  top  of  the  plateau;  then  they 
were  let  down  with  the  resistlessness  of  fate  into  the 
Golden  Horn.  The  chain  was  thus  rendered  useless,  and 
the  investment  of  the  doomed  city  was  complete. 

During  the  reign  of  Soulei'man  I,  this  harbor  was  com- 
pletely filled  up  by  Khaireddin  Pasha,  known  to  Christian 
history  as  the  terrible  Barbarossa.  All  the  labor  was 
performed  by  sixteen  thousand  Christian  prisoners,  whom 
he  had  captured  in  his  Mediterranean  raids.  It  has  borne 
ever  since  the  name  of  Dolma  Baghtcheh,  the  Vegetable 
Garden ;  it  was  the  boast  of  Khaireddin  that  on  it  he  had 
made  to  grow  "the  finest  cabbages  on  the  Bosphorus." 
The  Mosque,  erected  by  the  Valideh,  or  mother  of  Sultan 
Abd-ul  Medjid,  the  Ministry  of  the  Civil  List,  the  Imperial 
Stables,  and  the  southern  wing  of  the  white  marble  palace 
of  Dolma  Baghtcheh,  occupy  a  portion  of  the  artificial  site. 

Near  the  water  is  a  tekieh  of  the  Mevlevi,  or  Whirling- 
Dervishes,  over  which,  under  Mourad  IV,  the  ascetic  Sheik 


L36  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Hassan  Dedeh  presided  till  he  reached  the  age  of  more  than 
fivescore  years  and  ten.  His  successor  and  son-in-law, 
Yusonf  Djellalin,  never  attained  like  length  of  days,  but 
surpassed  him  in  outward  fervor.  Often,  while  teaching, 
he  became  "  excited  by  divine  emotion,  and  recklessly  cast 
himself  from  his  pulpit  upon  the  heads  of  the  worshippers 
below,  and  thus  on  the  floor  of  the  sanctuary  applauded 
the  mysterious  Mevlevi  dance." 

The  whitened  ruins,  visible  from  the  water,  are  the 
foundations  of  an  imperial  mosque,  begun  by  Sultan  Abd- 
ul Aziz  when  at  the  summit  of  his  power.  His  sudden 
deposition  left  his  purpose  incomplete ;  and  the  vast  and 
tumbling  piles  are  both  the  emblem  and  the  monument 
of  his  reign. 

As  in  caique  or  steamer  one  glides  northward,  the  view 
along  the  European  bank  unfolds  in  still  more  sumptuous 
majesty.  The  far-stretching,  snow-pure  Serai,  or  Palace 
of  Dolma  Baghtcheh,  with  its  interminable,  dainty  wings 
and  its  profuse  carvings,  delicate  as  lace,  is  in  its  whole 
effect  ethereal  as  a  dream.  Its  foreground  is  the  strait, 
with  its  ever-sparkling  waves  of  deep  Ionian  blue ;  its 
background  is  the  hillside,  covered  with  the  mazes  of  the 
Imperial  Park,  and  clothed  in  perennial  green.  A  pearl, 
placed  between  a  turquoise  and  an  emerald,  each  jewel 
multiplied  in  size  and  loveliness  many  million-fold,  is 
the  fittest  simile  to  picture  the  palace  and  its  peerless 
setting. 

In  describing  this  palace,  two  eloquent  tourists,  the 
French  Theophile  Gautier  and  the  Italian  Edmondo  de 
Amicis,  have  taxed  the  vocabulary  of  admiration  to  the 
utmost.  "  An  architectural  conception,  unique  in  its 
kind,"  it  is  also  the  vastest  palace  in  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
Its  founder,  Sultan  Abd-ul  Medjid,  laid  no  restriction  on 


138  CONSTANTINOPL  E 

his  Armenian  architect  Balian,  and  left  him  absolutely 
free  in  the  matter  of  expenditure  and  in  the  exercise  of 
his  taste.  Only  one  condition  was  imposed,  —  that  the 
edifice  when  complete  should  surpass  every  palatial  dwell- 
ing which  any  sultan  anywhere  had  beheld.  Variety  and 
ostentatious  prodigality  are  its  prominent  characteristics. 
It  became  the  favorite  residence  of  three  successive  sul- 
tans. Abd-ul  Medjid,  Abd-ul  Aziz,  and  Mourad  V.  Within 
its  walls  was  the  rude  awakening  of  May  29,  1876,  when, 
startled  from  his  early  morning  sleep,  Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz 
learned  the  verdict,  rendered  against  many  a  sovereign 
since  the  days  of  King  Belshazzar,  that  his  kingdom  was 
numbered  and  finished  and  given  away.  There,  too.  his 
father,  Sultan  Abd-ul  Medjid,  had  died,  and  there  his  suc- 
cessor, Mourad  V,  overwrought  with  excitement,  lost  his 
reason.  Thus  much  of  imperial  history  the  palace  has 
beheld  in  its  brief  existence  of  forty-two  years. 

I  shall  attempt  no  picture  of  this  imperial  abode. 
Though  many  times  I  have  passed  through  its  resplendent 
portal,  and  climbed  its  crystal  stairway,  and  wandered 
along  its  inlaid  halls  and  through  rooms  whose  floor  and 
wall  and  ceiling  are  of  alabaster,  I  carry  with  me  now,  as 
I  carried  with  me  then,  only  a  sense  of  bewilderment  and 
dazed  confusion.  Broad  tables  of  malachite  and  lapis 
lazuli  and  vert  antique ;  curtains  so  heavy  that  they 
would  stand  erect  in  their  massive  tissue ;  plate  mirrors, 
the  largest  ever  made ;  candelabra  of  cut  glass,  flashing 
the  light  from  three  hundred  and  thirty-three  silver 
sockets,  a  mystic  number ;  every  Western  as  well  as  every 
Eastern  splendor  in  color  and  gold  :  recollection  and  words 
fail  in  the  endeavor  to  recall  and  describe  them. 

The  throne-room  occupies  the  centre  of  the  palace.  It 
is  over  one  hundred  and   fifty  feet  in  length,  and  almost 


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140 


( 'ONSTANTINOPLE 


square.  Colonnades,  consisting,  not  of  single  pillars  in 
rows,  but  of  lines  of  Corinthian  columns,  grouped  in  fours, 
support  the  dome.  Light  brown  is  the  prevailing  color, 
but  the  capitals  and  cornices  are  gilded.  The  ceiling  is 
rich  in  frescos  by  the  French  artist  Sechan.  No  throne- 
room    in    Europe   is   more   effective   in  its   tout    ensemble. 


The  Bath-room  in  the  Palace  of  Dolma  Baghtcheh  in 
Carved  Alabaster 


Here  are  still  celebrated  all  the  grander  civil  and  political 
ceremonies  of  the  Empire,  and  such  national  religious 
rites  as  do  not  from  their  nature  require  performance 
within  the  consecrated  vails  of  a  mosque. 

In  stateliness  and  perfection  of  detail  the  most  impres- 
sive of  all  these  ceremonies  is  the  Act  of  Homage,  per- 
formed at  daybreak  on  the  beginning  of  the  great  Moslem 


THE  ONE-ROOM    IN    THE    PALACE    OE    DOLMA    BAGHTCHEII 


142  CONST.  I N  TLXOPLE 

festivals,  the  Buyouk  and  the  Courban  Ba'irams,  by  the 
civil,  military,  and  religious  officials  of  the  Empire.  The 
Sultan,  wearing  his  sword  and  the  silk-tasselled  crimson 

fez,  but  otherwise  attired  like  a  plain,  black-coated  Ameri- 
can gentleman,  takes  his  seat  upon  a  vide,  deep-hacked 
throne.  This  is  always  on  the  northern  or  inner  side  of 
the  hall.  From  each  arm  of  the  throne  hangs  a  broad 
silk  sash  of  green  and  red,  about  four  feet  long,  and  bor- 
dered by  narrow  fringe.  The  Sherif  of  Mecca,  the  guard- 
ian of  the  sacred  Kaaba,  approaches  unattended.  The 
Sultan  rises  to  his  feet,  and  the  Sherif  slowly  repeats  a 
prayer.  As  soon  as  the  prayer  is  finished,  the  great  dig- 
nitaries in  solemn  file  are  to  march  in  through  the 
colonnade  on  the  west. 

The  civil  functionaries  first  come  forward,  headed  by 
the  Grand  Vizir.  They  advance  with  measured  step,  not 
directly  toward  the  throne,  hut  in  a  line  parallel  to  the 
inner  side  of  the  room.  When  just  opposite  the  throne, 
the  Grand  Vizir  changes  his  direction,  moves  slowly 
toward  it,  and  casts  himself  prostrate  as  if  to  embrace  the 
Sultan's  feet.  In  this  act  of  utmost  humility  he  is  repre- 
sentative, not  of  himself  primarily,  hut  of  the  entire  nation, 
which  thus,  in  the  person  of  its  highest  minister,  proclaims 
its  absolute  submission  to  its  absolute  lord.  But  the 
Sultan  does  not  allow  the  Grand  Vizir  to  complete  his 
homage:  lie  bends  to  raise  him,  and  addresses  him  with  a 
few  kindly  words.  The  Vizir  then  steps  backward  to  the 
western  side,  but  retaining  his  relative  position  as  head  of 
the  line. 

After  him  advance  the  other  cabinet  ministers.  Each 
in  a  posture  of  profound  humility  raises  his  right  hand 
from  the  floor  to  his  lips  and  forehead;  then  stooping,  he 
kisses  the  end  of  the  silken  sash,  which  afterward  he  lifts 


THE  BOSPHORUS  143 

reverently  to  his  forehead ;  then  humbly  he  salaams  once 
more,  and  steps  backward  behind  the  Grand  Vizir  to 
the  next  vacant  place.  The  Sultan  remains  standing 
until  the  homage  of  the  ministers  has  been  paid.  Then 
he  seats  himself  once  more,  and  the  great  pashas  and 
heads  of  the  various  subject  communities  approach  in 
turn  according  to  their  rank. 

High  up  in  the  Ambassadors'  Gallery,  whence  a  few 
favored  guests  look  down,  the  suppressed  excitement  of 
keen  interest  is  everywhere  visible.  The  obsequious  offi- 
cials appear  awe-stricken,  and  many  a  countenance  wears 
an  expression  of  terror.  But  the  Sultan's  pallid  face  is 
as  impassive  as  marine.  Each  individual  he  regards  with 
a  fixed,  unchanging,  indifferent  look.  Girt  by  the  might- 
iest of  his  realm,  he  reduces  them  all  to  common,  equal 
nothingness.  He,  the  centre  of  the  glittering  pageantry, 
is  the  only  unmoved  human  being  in  the  great  assembly. 
Rarely  does  he  address  a  remark  to  any  except  his 
Grand  Vizir,  and  then  his  words  are  cherished  as  a  most 
distinguished  honor,  and  handed  clown  like  heirlooms  in 
the  family  of  the  recipient. 

The  military  and  naval  officers,  the  marshals,  admirals, 
generals,  and  senior  colonels  follow  next  in  order.  They 
traverse  the  room  to  the  farther  or  eastern  side,  and  draw 
up  in  the  line  fronting  that  headed  by  the  Grand  Vizir. 
Their  military  homage  is  rendered  with  equal  solemnity, 
but  with  less  outward  expression  of  humility.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  that  the  foreign  officers  in  the  service  of  the 
Sultan  are  far  more  servile  in  their  bearing  on  such 
occasions  than  are  the  Ottomans. 

Last  of  all  come  the  oulema,  the  clergy,  the  highest 
order  in  the  state.  The  civilians  and  the  military  glit- 
ter with  brilliant  uniforms  and  decorations,  and   gilded 


144  CONSTANTINOPLE 

lace.  The  clergy,  clad  in  long  flowing  robes  of  green  or 
black,  their  snowy  turbans  adorned  at  most  with  a  narrow 
strip  of  gold,  wearing  an  air  of  abstraction  and  of  appar- 
ent indifference  to  earthly  pomp,  seem  like  beings  of 
another  and  a  more  exalted  sphere.  Moreover,  their  type 
of  countenance  is  distinctively  Ottoman.  Unmixed  in 
race,  in  their  veins  courses  the  blue  blood  of  Islam  and  of 
the  Osmanli.  At  their  approach  the  Sultan  rises  in  recog- 
nition of  their  holy  office,  and  remains  erect  until  the 
last  priest  has  passed.  He  bows  his  head  as  the  Sheik- 
ul-Islam,  the  Sherif  of  Mecca,  and  the  Cazi-Askers  of 
Roumelia  and  Anatolia  group  themselves  in  a  quartette 
and  intone  a  prayer.  Then  the  Sheik-ul-Islam  embraces 
the  sovereign  on  the  left  shoulder,  he  being  the  only  sub- 
ject to  whom  such  equality  with  1  his  master  is  allowed. 
The  remainder  of  the  clergy,  as  they  draw  near,  assume 
an  almost  sitting  posture. 

When  the  last  tribute  has  been  paid,  the  monarch  retires, 
and  the  ceremonial  is  over.  But  it  has  been  marvellously 
effective  and  inposing.  With  the  regularity  and  auto- 
matic precision  of  a  perfect  machine,  in  a  stillness  the 
most  absolute,  save  as  broken,  at  the  appointed  moments, 
by  the  clanging  music  of  the  imperial  band,  five  hundred 
or  even  more  of  these  officials  have,  each  in  the  order 
appropriate  to  his  rank,  pledged  his  allegiance  and 
submission. 

After  the  foreign  guests  have  disappeared  from  the 
gallery,  and  his  titled  subjects  are  gone,  the  Sultan 
resumes  his  place  upon  the  throne,  and  receives  his  per- 
sonal attendants  and  servants.  There  is  no  dependent  so 
lowly,  caiquedji  or  scullion,  that  he  does  not  appear  before 
his  master.  The  entire  preceding  scene  is  repeated  with 
the  same  order  and  regularity.     In  the  popular  mind  the 


140  CONSTANTINOPLE 

difference  is  only  this :  the  first  ceremonial  was  the  act  of 
the  nation  performed  by  its  chiefs ;  the  second  is  the  more 
familiar  homage  of  the  Sultan's  private  household. 

Dolma  Baghtcheh  Serai  has  never  been  loved  by  the 
present  Sultan.  Yildiz  Kiosk,  or  the  Palace  of  the  Star, 
is  in  better  keeping  with  his  refined  and  simple  tastes  and 
his  unostentatious  habits.  From  the  passing  steamer,  its 
elegant  outline  can  be  discerned  on  the  crest  of  the  grove- 
clad  hill  which  overlooks  the  palace  of  Dolma  Baghtcheli. 
Yildiz  Kiosk  is  the  creation  of  Sultan  Abd-ul  Hamid  II. 
Since  its  completion  he  has  resided  there.  It  is  a  two- 
storied  structure  of  white  marble,  resembling  rather  the 
dwelling-house  of  an  opulent  private  gentleman  than  an 
imperial  palace.  The  basement  contains  the  rooms  of 
servants  and  attendants.  In  the  first  story  are  the  offices 
of  the  marshal  of  the  palace,  the  soldier  Osman  Pasha, 
whose  obstinate  defence  of  Plevna  against  the  Russians 
gave  him  immense  distinction,  and  of  the  second  cham- 
berlain. The  second  story  is  occupied  by  His  Majesty. 
Here  the  foreign  ambassadors  are  accorded  formal  recej)- 
tions,  official  presentations  are  made,  and  state  bancpiets 
given. 

The  reception-room,  wherein  the  envoys  of  different 
powers  present  their  credentials,  is  a  large,  high-studded 
apartment  fronting  the  Bosphorus.  It  was  my  valued 
privilege  to  be  present,  together  with  the  Hon.  S.  S.  Cox, 
when  (Ten.  Lew  Wallace  was  received,  as  Minister  from  the 
United  States,  by  the  Sultan.  The  Oriental  formality 
observed  a  hundred  years  ago  on  such  occasions  has  given 
way  in  these  later  days  to  a  modern  etiquette,  as  rigorous, 
but  more  dignified,  more  simple,  but  no  less  imposing. 
The  Ottoman  ministers  of  state  are  drawn  up  in  line  on 
the  right  of  the  sovereign,  one  hand  upon  the  hilt  of  the 


H 


148  CONSTANTINOPLE 

sword,  and  the  other  upon  the  breast  in  an  attitude  of 
profound  humility.  The  position  of  the  envoy  is  in  the 
centre  of  the  room.  On  his  right  is  stationed  his  first 
dragoman,  or  interpreter,  and  his  suite  are  behind  him. 
Between  two  windows  on  the  farther  or  southern  side 
stands  the  Sultan.  The  Ottoman  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs  and  the  Grand  Master  of  Ceremonies  are  on  his 
left. 

The  envoy  presents  his  credentials,  and  states  to  his 
dragoman  what  he  has  to  say.  This  the  dragoman  trans- 
lates in  Turkish  to  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  who  in 
turn  repeats  it  in  a  low,  hushed  voice  to  the  Sultan.  In 
a  similar  manner  the  Sultan  transmits  his  formal  reply  to 
the  envoy.  Then  follow  a  few  courteous  remarks  of  wel- 
come and  kindly  interest  on  the  part  of  the  sovereign,  to 
which  the  envoy  responds  with  equal  courtesy.  The 
formal  leave-taking  salutations  are  made,  and  the  now 
accredited  minister  retires  with  his  suite,  all  walking 
backwards  till  outside  the  apartment. 

The  guests  are  then  entertained  by  the  Ottoman  min- 
isters with  cigarettes  and  Turkish  coffee  in  an  adjacent 
room.  The  cigarettes  are  presented  with  amber-mouthed 
jasmine  holders.  The  coffee  is  served  in  the  daintiest 
cups,  which  sparkle  with  diamonds.  Then  an  invitation 
is  tendered  to  return  to  the  reception-room,  that  the 
strangers  may  have  the  opportunity  of  admiring  its  many 
beautiful  details.  An  American  is  astounded  at  seeing 
the  name  "  G.  Washington  "  on  an  elaborate  picture  which 
constitutes  the  main  mural  ornament  of  the  stairway. 
The  British  artist  whose  work  is  thus  distinguished  was  a 
kinsman  of  our  national  hero  and  first  president.  Admi- 
rable pictures  adorn  the  walls.  Two,  representing  wild 
scenes  along  the  rugged  Norwegian  coast,  by  an  illustrious 


100  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Armenian  painter,  Aivazofski,  are  intensely  realistic.  But 
as  the  stranger  gazes  from  the  windows,  between  which  the 
Sultan  stood  at  the  reception,  he  realizes  well  why  the 
present  occupant  of  the  throne  has  fixed  his  residence 
here.  The  banks  of  even  the  peerless  Bosphorus  nowhere 
else  afford  so  commanding  a  site,  and  nowhere  else  dis- 
play so  transcendent  a  view.  "  Oh,  the  rich  burst  of  that 
bright  sea  and  shore  !  "  No  other  sovereign  on  the  globe 
can  contemplate  from  his  chamber-windows  a  scene  which 
approaches  this.  Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz  indeed  erected  a 
summer  cottage  here ;  yet  it  is  strange  that,  until  the 
accession  of  the  present  Sultan,  not  one  of  the  sceptred 
successors  of  the  conqueror  has  realized  how  matchless 
is  this  situation,  and  how  dazzling  the  landscape  it 
reveals. 

Glorious  as  is  the  wide-spread  spectacle  by  day,  it  is 
sometimes  rendered  even  more  enchanting  by  the  splen- 
dors of  the  night.  At  the  anniversary  festivals  of  the 
Mevloud,  or  birth  of  the  Prophet,  and  of  the  birth  and 
accession  of  the  Sultan,  Seraglio  Point  and  all  Stamboul 
and  Scutari,  and  the  entire  Asiatic  and  European  banks, 
are  luminous  as  seas  of  liquid  fire.  The  myriad  minarets 
of  the  mosques,  the  front  of  every  palace  and  private 
dwelling,  the  masts  and  rigging  of  the  ships,  the  trees  in 
the  gardens  and  parks,  are  hung  with  multi-colored  lamps, 
which  seem  innumerable  as  the  stars.  Lights,  arranged  in 
fiery  emblems  or  fashioning  Arabic  texts  from  the  Koran, 
are  hung  high  up  in  distinct  relief  against  the  sky.  Over 
the  lustrous  waters  flit  thousands  of  caiques  and  tiny 
craft,  each  with  its  burning  lamps,  and  each  glittering  as  it 
moves.  No  other  city  in  the  world  is  itself  such  an  arena 
for  pyrotechnic  pomp.  The  coruscated  fireworks  of  France 
and  America   are  without  a    Bosphorus   to   reflect  their 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


151 


blaze.  As,  at  such  an  hour,  the  Sultan  looks  forth  upon 
his  capital,  transfigured  into  the  likeness  of  a  celestial 
city,  even  his  calm  soul  must  sometimes  swell  at  the  con- 
sciousness that  all  this  is  his. 

The  Hamidieh,  or  Mosque  of  Abd-ul  Hamicl  II,  is  situ- 
ated a  little  distance  outside  the  enclosure  of  Yilcliz  Kiosk. 
Of  graceful  proportions  and  harmonious  coloring,  but  of 


Sultan  Selim  TTI  going  to  Mosque  in  1789 


small  dimensions,  it  is  eclipsed  in  size,  though  not  always 
in  beauty,  by  many  an  imperial  mosque.  The  voice  of  its 
muezzin,  as  he  calls  from  its  minaret  to  prayer,  is  unusu- 
ally sonorous,  and  his  accents  float  over  the  hills  like 
organ-music.  Scrupulous  in  the  discharge  of  every  reli- 
gious obligation,  the  Sultan  never  misses  his  Friday  prayer, 
and  this  is  the  sanctuary  he  best  loves.  The  duty  of  pre- 
siding at  this  solemn  office  has  been  incumbent  upon  the 
Ottoman  sovereigns  ever  since  1517,  when  Selim  I  con- 


152  CONSTANTINOPLE 

quered  Egypt,  and  was  thereupon  hailed  as  Caliph.  No 
inclemency  of  weather,  however  severe,  no  physical  ailment, 
however  acute,  has  been  allowed  to  stand  in  its  way. 
While  thus  bowed  in  worship,  the  monarch  is  regarded 
as  the  high-priest,  representative  of  his  people.  Through 
him  the  whole  Mussulman  world  offers  up  its  petition, 
and  with   still  lips  waits  while  its  master  prays. 

The  visible  part  of  this  ceremony,  the  selamlik,  is 
attended  with  all  conceivable  display.  Regiments  of  the 
best-clad  and  best-drilled  Ottoman  troops  line  the  ap- 
proaches. A  countless  crowd  of  both  sexes,  and  of  every 
age  and  rank  and  creed,  block  the  streets,  and  overflow  the 
hillsides  and  slopes  along  the  way.  Ambassadors  and 
foreigners  fill  the  chambers  overlooking  the  route  of  the 
procession. 

"Arms  at  rest,  along  the  way 
Stands  a  statuesque  array; 
File  on  serried  file  is  seen, 
Turbaned  with  the  sacred  green; 
And  as  far  as  eye  can  view, 
Bayonets  of  steely  hue 
Catch  the  midday  sun  and  throw 
Back  the  scintillating  glow. 
Yonder  marble  mosque  is  where 
Goes  the  Sultan  for  his  prayer; 
Yonder  carpet  fine  is  spread 
For  his  royal  feet  to  tread; 
And  this  guardian  throng  must  wait 
Till  he  signs  to  ope  the  gate." 

Preceded  by  a  gorgeous  and  numerous  suite,  the  Sultan 
appears.  A  deep-voiced  shout  of  "  Padishah  Tchok 
Yasha  !  "  Long  live  the  Sultan  !  rends  the  air.  Now,  by 
Oriental  etiquette,  each  umbrella  or  parasol  must  be  folded 
up,  not   an   opera-glass  be  open,  not  a  cough  or  human 


o 


154 


COXSTAXTIXOPLE 


voice  be  heard.  He  passes  over  the  carpet  spread  for  his 
feet,  and  enters  the  mosque  ;  but  the  thousands  linger  for 
his  reappearing.  At  last  lie  issues  from  the  open  door. 
Petitions,  even  from  the  humblest,  are  thrust  upon  him. 
He  takes  his  seat  within  his  carriage  or  mounts  his  steed, 
is  rapidly  borne  away,  and  the  selamlik  is  done. 

The  village  of  Beshicktash  winds  in  the  rear  of  Dolma 
Baghtcheh  Serai,  and,  on  its  northern  side,  emerges  from 
obscurity  to  touch  the  Bosphorus  for  a  little    distance. 

Mainly  inhabited  by  Otto- 
man officials  and  depend- 
ants of  the  Palace,  it 
breathes  an  Eastern  air, 
and  all  its  history  or  former 
life  seems  lost  in  its  exist- 
ence of  to-day.  Moscpies, 
founded  and  maintained 
by  Moslem  opulence,  der- 
vish tekiehs,  the  abodes  of 
Moslem  piety  and  penury, 
and  tombs,  reputed  holy 
because  containing  the 
ashes  of  saintly  Moslem  dead,  alternate  with  one  another. 
From  its  landing-place,  the  Sacred  Camel,  blessed  by  the 
oulema,  and  laden  with  offerings  for  Mecca,  is  embarked 
each  year  for  Scutari,  thence  to  head  the  procession  of 
pilgrims  in  their  weary  journey  to  the  holy  cities  of 
Arabia. 

The  most  revered  possession  of  the  place  is  the  turbeh, 
or  mausoleum  of  the  sailor,  Kha'ireddin  Pasha,  or  Barba- 
rossa,  on  whom  Ottoman  pride  still  bestows  the  title  of 
"  Sovereign  Lord  of  the  Sea."  The  mighty  captain  sleeps, 
as  is  fitting,  close  to  the  water,  which  he  reddened  with 


KiiAi'REDDix  Pasha 


THE  BOSPHORUS  155 

so  many  victories,  and  over  which  he  so  many  times  re- 
turned in  triumph,  his  galleys  laden  with  Christian  slaves 
and  Christian  spoil.  Above  his  bier  is  suspended  his  green 
silk  battle-flag,  tattered  in  fight,  and  now  dropping  in 
fragments  through  age.  In  its  centre,  a  hand  is  wrought 
over  a  two-edged  sword,  the  famous  zulfacar,  or  double- 
bladed  weapon  of  the  Caliph  Ali.  At  its  corners  are  the 
names  of  the  first  four  successors  of  the  Prophet,  and  near 
the  staff,  a  militant  passage  from  the  Koran.  To  the 
ceiling  is  attached  a  monstrous,  globular,  bright-colored 
lantern,  which  formerly  hung  from  the  mainmast  of  his 
war-ship.  Until  a  recent  date,  every  admiral,  before  de- 
parture with  a  fleet,  used  to  offer  his  devotions  within 
this  mausoleum,  as  if  soliciting  from  Allah  glory  and 
success,  like  that  of  his  terrible  predecessor.  The  not 
distant  Orthodox  Greek  Church  of  the  Repose  of  the 
Holy  Virgin  has  its  own  pathetic  association  with  the 
exploits  of  Barbarossa.  It  was  there  that  his  Christian 
captives,  hopeless  of  any  human  aid,  were  allowed  to  come 
and  pray. 

Even  the  name  Beshicktash,  the  Five  Stones,  is  a  leg- 
acy from  Barbarossa,  being  derived  from  five  marble 
pillars,  which  he  set  up  at  the  water's  edge,  and  to  which 
his  war-ships  were  moored.  It  was  indeed  a  place  of  pil- 
lars. Here  Romanos  I,  who  was  dethroned  just  six  hun- 
dred years  before  the  death  of  the  great  admiral,  had 
erected  two  of  such  unusual  size  that  the  Greeks  called 
the  region  Diplokionion,  or  the  Double  Columns. 

Achmet  I  clung  to  the  village  with  special  affection. 
It  was  his  birth-place.  He  aspired  to  construct  a  palace, 
not  upon  the  shore,  but  in  the  middle  of  the  swift-flowing 
stream.  With  a  sudden  frenzy  of  enthusiasm,  the  entire 
population  rallied  to  his  assistance ;  each  household  in  the 


156  CONSTANTINOPLE 

city  furnished  one  workman ;  each  head  of  a  family 
labored  himself.  Haughty  janissaries  and  sipahis,  who 
had  never  performed  any  manual  labor,  carried  earth. 
Pashas  and  vizirs  stripped  themselves  of  money.  A  pier, 
eight  hundred  paces  lung,  was  thrust  out  into  the  water. 
At  its  farther  end,  before  three  months  had  passed,  there 
rose,  as  by  enchantment,  a  fairy  fabric,  that  seemed  to 
hover  between  the  sea  and  sky.  Before  another  three 
months  were  over,  a  violent  storm  rolled  down  the  strait, 
and  swept  pier  and  palace,  and  almost  their  memory, 
away. 

Ever  after  the  Conquest,  Beshicktash  was  a  favorite 
summer  resort  of  the  sultans.  The  Ottoman  writers  di- 
late with  eastern  grandiloquence  on  the  ceremonies  and 
pomp  attendant  on  their  successive  removals.  But  the 
palaces,  wherein  the  sultans  sought  diversion  and  change, 
were  showy,  fragile  structures,  hardly  more  stable  than 
the  one  Achmet  I  had  reared  upon  the  sea.  Each  reign 
built  its  own,  brushing  aside  those  of  its  predecessors  like 
autumn  leaves. 

Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz  resolved  that  his  proposed  palace, 
called  Tcheragan  Serai,  should  be  more  commanding  and 
more  permanent.  On  it  he  lavished,  it  is  commonly  be- 
lieved, more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  million  francs,  or 
thirty  million  dollars.  In  it  Oriental  and  Saracenic  art 
expended  all  the  opulence  of  its  invention.  Stone  and 
stucco  were  disdained  in  its  construction  and  decoration. 
There  is  only  the  costliest  marine  of  every  variety  and 
hue  everywhere.  In  its  conception  and  execution,  it  re- 
veals the  luxurious  taste  of  its  prodigal  founder.  Eager  as 
a  child  to  take  possession  of  its  toy,  he  slept  one  night  under 
its  roof  before  the  edifice  was  completed.  Some  untoward 
circumstance  —  an    evil    dream,    or    unfavorable   omen  — 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


157 


changed  all  his  delight  into  sudden  aversion,  and  it  is  said 
he  never  entered  its  doors  again.  A  few  months  later,  in 
one  of  its  dependent  structures,  —  that  nearest  the  guard- 
house on  the  north. 


—  almost  forgotten 
by  the  millions,  who 
seven  clays  before 
had  been  obsequious 
to  his  nod,  cared  for 
only  by  his  mother, 
by  a  favorite  sultana, 
and  a  few  attend- 
ants, faithful  to  the 
last,  the  dethroned 
sovereign  died  his 
tragic  and  inexplica- 
ble death,  on  that 
bright  Sunday  morn- 
ing of  June  5, 
1876. 

More  imperial 
than  all  this  fringe 
of  palaces,  and  to 
last  when  they  are 
crumbled,  is  the  host 
of  unfading  cy- 
presses, planted  cen- 
turies ago  by  the 
pious  hand  of  the  humble   dervish,   Abali  Mehmet. 

A  little  farther  on,  the  white  mosque  of  Sultan  Abd-ul 
Medjicl,  shattered  by  the  earthquake  of  1894,  but  still  fair 
in  its  partial  ruin,  advances  toward  the  water,  and  indi- 
cates Ortakeui,  or  the  Village  Between.     Here  Thasiaus 


Passage  in  the  Palace  of  Tcheragax 


1  58  CONST.  I NTINOPLE 

planted  their  colony  of  Archeion  in  the  mythologic  days 
of  Chalkedon  and  Byzantium.  Here  Basil  I,  the  Mace- 
donian, erected  the  far-famed  Church  of  Saint  Phokas. 
Here  dwelt  the  Patriarch  John  VI,  the  Roger  Bacon  of 
the  East,  the  Byzantine  wizard,  reputed  a  proficient  in 
the  black  art,  and  a  protege  of  the  evil  one.  Here,  on  the 
little  cape  of  Defterdar  Bournou,  was  the  temple  conse- 
crate to  the  Old  Man  of  the  Sea,  whatever  his  name,  —  Ne- 
reus,  Phorkis,  Proteus,  or  the  father  of  Semistras,  Jason's 
pilot  on  the  Euxine.  Esteemed  unhealthy  by  the  Otto- 
mans, the  ravine  and  hill  were  long  abandoned  to  the 
Christians  and  Jews.  The  latter  have  found  on  its  wind- 
swept summit  a  dreary  resting-place  for  their  dead.  When 
the  Ottomans  realized,  at  last,  how  attractive  was  the 
shore,  they  rapidly  took  possession;  but  its  occupation 
seemed  to  bring  misfortune  to  the  Ottoman  magnates 
who  built  upon  it.  Here  lived  the  grand  vizir,  Damat 
Ali  Pasha,  whose  palace  elicits  two  pages  of  dazed  descrip- 
tion from  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  and  who  him- 
self died  a  heroic,  but  useless  death  at  the  fearful  battle 
of  Peterwardein.  Here,  too,  was  the  palace  of  an  earlier 
grand  vizir,  Kara  Moustapha  Pasha,  who  was  overthrown 
at  the  siege  of  Vienna,  by  the  Polish  king,  John  Sobieski, 
and  whose  skull,  stolen  from  his  burial-place  at  Belgrade, 
is  to-day  on  grisly  exhibition  in  a  museum  at  Vienna. 

Along  the  course  thus  far,  Seraglio  Point  and  Stamboul 
have  been  visible  in  minaretted  panorama  to  each  back- 
ward look.  After  the  last  sharp  bend  in  the  shore,  one 
turns  and  finds  almost  mournfully  that  they  have  disap- 
peared from  view.  Precipitous  and  rugged  on  the  left, 
the  rocky  hill  of  Kouroutcheshmeh,  the  Dry  Fountain, 
climbs  up  into  the  sky.  Once  its  bald  plateau  was 
crowned   with   a  temple  of  the   Egyptian   Isis.     On  the 


160  CONS  T.  1 NTINOPLE 

spot  where  the  goddess  of  the  Nile  had  had  her  mournful 
altar,  the  Stylite  saint,  Daniel  of  the  Bosphorus,  built  his 
lofty  pillar,  in  464.  On  its  narrow  top,  he  remained 
twenty-seven  years  without  once  descending  to  the  ground, 
enduring  — 

"  Rain,  wind,  frost,  heat,  hail,  damp  and  sleet  and  snow, 
Battering  the  gates  of  heaven  with  storms  of  prayer.*' 

Tradition,  immortalizing  folly  no  less  than  fanaticism  or 
failure,  has  dubbed  the  tiny  bay  with  the  name  Parabolos, 
the  Heedless,  from  the  fishermen  who  were  accustomed 
here  to  cast  their  nets,  regardless  of  current  or  wind  or 
the  season  of  the  year. 

The  bay  is  a  safe  anchorage  always  dotted  with  vessels. 
Tradition  says  that,  on  his  return  from  Colchis,  Jason 
landed  here,  and  spread  out  the  Golden  Fleece.  One  is 
for  the  moment  startled  at  the  words  "  Jason's  Wharf  " 
in  great  black  letters  on  a  stone  building  near  a  pier. 
However,  the  words  have  no  reference  to  the  ancient  mar- 
iner, but  to  the  British  steamer  "  Jason,"  which  used  to 
coal  here  during  the  Crimean  War. 

Kouroutcheshmeh,  as  well  as  Arnaoutkeui  and  Bebek, 
the  two  villages  nearest  on  the  north,  is  inhabited  mainly 
by  Christians.  Lechevalier,  as  he  sailed  by,  a  hundred 
years  ago,  remarked  the  sombre  appearance  of  their  black- 
ened wooden  buildings.  Until  recently  the  Christians 
were  forbidden  to  paint  their  houses,  so  that  the  dwellings 
of  a  subject  and  non-Moslem  race  might  be  recognized  at 
once.  Nevertheless,  a  far-reaching  influence  has  gone 
forth  from  this  dingy  village.  Many  a  prince  and  diplo- 
mat of  Moldavia,  Wallachia.  and  Samos  has  been  born 
here.  With  its  churches  and  schools,  it  was  the  congenial 
residence,  and  sometimes  the  refuge,  of  the  Greek  patri- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  161 

archs  in  those  dark  clays  immediately  subsequent  to  the 
Conquest.  One  Greek  school  especially,  founded  by  the 
Mourousis  family,  and  taught  by  men  eminent  for  their 
learning,  patriotism,  and  piety,  had  a  notable  share  in  the 
revival  of  Greek  education  and  of  Greek  national  life. 

Arnaoutkeui,  the  village  of  the  Albanians,  was  a  desert 
waste  in  1468.  Then  Mohammed  II  peopled  it  with  cap- 
tives from  Albania,  who,  bereaved  of  their  invincible 
leader,  Scanderbeg,  could  not  resist  the  arms  of  the  Sul- 
tan. The  Albanian  type  of  the  settlers  has  entirely  dis- 
appeared ;  the  descendants  of  the  exiles  are  now  among 
the  proudest  of  the  Greeks.  A  horrible  fire,  in  1887,  in  a 
single  night  destroyed  over  fifteen  hundred  houses.  The 
cluster  of  dwellings  on  the  north,  occupied  by  the  sur- 
vivors, was  speedily  erected  by  public  philanthropy, 
largely  through  the  efforts  of  Lady  White,  the  wife  of  an 
illustrious  British  ambassador.  The  churches,  with  the 
tombs  of  the  patriarchs,  Sophronios  I  and  Gabriel  III, 
escaped  the  conflagration. 

The  current  rushes  by  with  so  terrific  force  that  boat- 
men cannot  contend  against  it.  Hence  came  its  mediaeval 
name  of  Mega  Rheuma  among  the  Greeks,  and  of  Akindi 
among  the  Ottomans,  —  the  Great  Current.  Dionysios 
of  Byzantium,  who  loved  the  marvellous,  declares  that 
in  his  day  the  crabs  had  to  abandon  the  water  in  their 
peregrinations,  and  to  crawl  over  the  land  to  smoother 
water  above,  and  that  their  frequent  passage  wore  a  deep 
track  in  the  rocks.  The  classic  name  was  Estiai,  from  a 
temple  of  the  goddess  Hestia ;  the  Christian  name,  Michae- 
lion,  from  the  archangel  Michael,  who  replaced  the  dis- 
crowned Poseidon  as  lord  of  the  Bosphorus. 

Constantine  built  here  a  church  to  the  mighty  arch- 
angel.    Justinian  replaced    it  by  one   more  magnificent, 

VOL.  I.  —  n 


1 6  2  CONSTANTINOPLE 

and  Isaac  Angelos,  seven  centuries  later,  by  one  larger 
still.  Mohammed  II,  in  1452,  razed  every  Christian 
structure  between  Ortakeui  and  the  Euxine,  and  thus 
obtained  materials  for  his  castle  at  Roumeli  Hissar.  The 
great  church  of  Saint  Michael  was  then  destroyed,  and  its 
fluted  marbles  built,  with  the  wreck  of  a  hundred  other 
churches,  into  the  terrible  fortress.  The  Greeks  cherished 
the  sacred  site  of  their  historic  sanctuary,  and  at  last  reared 
upon  it  the  still  standing  church,  —  the  largest  but  one  in 
the  capital,  dedicated,  like  its  predecessors,  to  the  fore- 
most of  the  archangels. 

At  Arnaoutkeui,  on  orthodox  Epiphany  in  the  early 
morning,  is  celebrated  the  ancient  ceremony  of  the  Bap- 
tism of  the  Waters.  In  the  midst  of  an  immense  con- 
course, the  bishop,  clad  in  his  episcopal  robes  and  attended 
by  his  clergy,  repeats  the  customary  prayers,  and  waves  a 
golden  cross  before  the  crowd.  Then  suddenly  he  throws 
it  into  the  stream.  The  boldest  and  strongest  swimmers 
plunge  into  the  fierce  current  to  rescue  the  consecrated 
emblem  ;  nor  do  they  desist  until  one,  more  fortunate  than 
the  others,  lifts  it  above  the  waves  in  triumph,  and  brings 
it  to  the  shore  rejoicing. 

On  the  north,  the  vast  palace  of  Sultan  Serai  stands 
haughtily  apart  from  every  other  structure.  In  front, 
sentinels  are  always  on  duty,  and  long-limbed,  narrow- 
shouldered,  hideous  black  eunuchs  are  constantly  leering 
at  its  gates.  Every  window  is  thickly  latticed ;  every 
curious  gaze  of  the  passer-by  is  thwarted  by  its  well- 
walled  seclusion.  When  Sultan  Abd-ul  Medjid  died  in 
1861,  the  ladies  of  his  household  were  shut  up  here. 
For  the  imprisoned  beauties  there  was  no  deliverance 
from  its  jealous  guardianship  except  through  marriage  or 
death.     The  hand  of  an   ex-sultana  is  a  costly  prize  to 


THE  BOSPHORUS  1G3 

which  only  the  most  opulent  would  aspire  ;  nevertheless, 
a  few  have  been  wedded.  Death  has  been  more  pre- 
sumptuous, and  some  of  the  caged  ladies  have  been  called 
forth  by  him  during  the  slow  passing  of  these  four  and 
thirty  years.  Many  still  remain,  possessors  of  a  brief 
memory  and  without  a  hope. 

Bebek  is  the  ancient  Chelai,  famed  for  its  grove  and 
temple  of  Artemis.  There  is  no  spot  upon  the  Bosphoras 
more  romantic  and  picturesque.  It  nestles  at  the  extrem- 
ity of  a  lovely  bay  in  a  deep  ravine  between  protecting 
hills.  A  splendid  Oriental  park,  and  a  kiosk  of  Mah- 
moud  II,  shaded  by  austere  pine-trees,  overshadow  it  from 
above.  At  its  foot  lies  a  garden,  rich  in  glorious  syca- 
mores whose  branches  rival  in  size  the  trunks  of  majes- 
tic trees.  Here  Seliin  I  built  a  kiosk,  which  he  called 
Humayoun  Abad  (the  Imperial  Abode),  wherein  the 
ferocious  Sultan  loved  to  rest.  Another  and  another 
took  its  place,  till  the  last  was  erected  in  1801.  Hither 
through  centuries  the  grand  vizirs  came  in  secret  to  hold 
private  conferences  with  the  foreign  ambassadors.  Here 
was  signed  the  first  treaty  between  the  Ottoman  Empire 
and  the  United  States.  The  kiosk  was  finally  destroyed 
by  fire.  Along  the  shore  on  either  side  are  palaces  which 
have  been  occupied  by  the  bearers  of  great  names  in  past 
and  present  Ottoman  history.  Of  them,  Ali  Pasha,  who 
died  in  1871,  and  Arifi  Pasha,  who  still  survives,  are  the 
most  distinguished. 

The  village  is  a  microcosm  of  the  capital.  Representa- 
tives of  a  dozen  nationalities  dwell  side  by  side.  Far  up 
the  ravine  is  the  rambling,  seven-storied  pile  —  once  the 
palatial  residence  of  a  sultan's  treasurer  —  in  which  Ameri- 
can missionaries  for  a  time  maintained  a  theological  semi- 
nary, and    in   which  Dr  Cyrus  Hamlin    founded    Robert 


104 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


College.  The  palace  is  now  the  residence  of  an  English 
household,  and  contains  a  British  church.  Every  Sunday 
morning  its  bell  rings  out  with  the  call  to  worship  and 
with  eloquent  reminders  of  home.  From  its  windows  are 
visible  a  school  of  the  Lazarist  friars,  a  chapel  of  the 
Sisters  of  Charity,  a  school  and  church  of  the  Greeks,  and 


Village  of  Bebek 


the  battered  wooden  house  in  which,  according  to  local 
tradition,  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps  was  born. 

In  grandeur  of  situation  and  wealth  of  history,  no  locality 
on  the  Bosphorus  surpasses  Roumeli  Hissar.  The  stern 
boldness  of  its  outline  is  best  appreciated  from  the  water. 
or  from  the  Asiatic  shore.  The  sio-ht  must  have  been 
awe-inspiring  when,  in  remote  prehistoric  ages,  for  the 
first  time  it  was  gazed  upon  by  a  human  eye.  The  exter- 
nal features  added  by  man  during  the  last  centuries  aug- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  165 

ment  its  impressiveness,  but  they  stand  in  a  permanent 
contrast  to  one  another  as  startling  as  the  shifting  pageantry 
of  a  dream.  On  the  top  of  the  hill,  against  the  sky,  is  the 
tekieh  of  the  Beghtash  Dervishes,  the  free-thinkers  of 
Islam  ;  by  the  shore,  the  most  plaintive  and  most  brilliant- 
hued  of  Mussulman  cemeteries  ;  in  the  foreground,  extend- 
ing up  the  cliif,  the  stately  towers,  now  dismantled,  but 
the  vastest  and  mightiest  which  the  Ottomans  have  ever 
reared ;  on  the  right  the  peaceful  village,  inhabited  by  the 
descendants  of  a  warlike,  but  superannuated  race  ;  on  the 
left  the  American  College,  whose  name  is  a  synonym  the 
world  over  of  Christian  philanthropy,  and  whose  influence 
is  to-day  the  most  potent  factor  for  the  regeneration  of 
the  East. 

Yet  the  gazer  can  now  behold  only  a  meagre  portion  of 
what  the  promontory  has  seen  in  its  centuries  of  watching. 
Though  their  footsteps  have  left  no  trace  on  the  fleeing 
waters,  this  is  the  spot  where,  from  earliest  antiquity,  the 
nations  have  crossed  from  continent  to  continent.  At 
this  point  is  the  natural  roadway.  Nowhere  else  do 
Europe  and  Asia  come  so  near  each  other,  till  their  boun- 
daries touch  in  the  Caucasus  and  Ural. 

Here,  two  thousand  four  hundred  and  seven  years  ago, 
Mandrokles  spanned  the  stream  with  a  bridge  of  boats  for 
the  passage  of  the  army  which  Darius  led  against  the 
Scythians.  When  all  was  ready,  the  Persian  monarch 
took  his  seat  upon  a  throne,  hewn  in  the  solid  rock  on 
the  European  side,  to  witness  the  slow  defiling  of  his 
seven  hundred  thousand  men.  For  a  month  the  host 
encamped  upon  these  hills,  and  then  resumed  their  march 
toward  the  Danube  and  Dacia.  On  the  European  shore, 
Mandrokles  placed  two  white  marble  columns  to  commem- 
orate the  exploit.     In  the  temple  of  Hera,  at  his  native 


166  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Samos,  he  dedicated  a  picture  of  the  crossing  with  the  fol- 
lowing inscription  :  "  Mandrokles,  having  bridged  the  fishy 
Bosphorus,  consecrated  to  Hera  a  memorial  of  the  bridge. 
Having  accomplished  it  to  the  satisfaction  of  King  Darius, 
he  gained  a  crown  for  himself  and  glory  for  the  Samoans." 
The  columns  soon  disappeared.  The  monumental  throne, 
flanked  with  pillars  and  charged  with  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions, remained  until  the  Byzantines  built  over  it  their 
state  prison  of  Lethe.  The  failure  of  the  expedition 
brought  on  the  Ionian  revolt,  and  the  consequent  Persian 
invasions  of  Greece.  Here  the  Persian  foot  had  first 
touched  European  soil.  Here  Marathon  and  Salamis  and 
Arbela  began.  Of  the  early  crossing,  Herodotus,  most 
charming  of  all  narrators,  best  gives  the  account. 

It  is  a  tradition  —  probable,  but  impossible  of  proof  — 
that  this  is  the  very  point  where  Xenophon  and  the  Ten 
Thousand  crossed  the  Bosphorus  in  their  return  to  Europe 
after  their  unequalled  march. 

The  most  daring  passage  is  that  of  the  fifteen  thousand 
Patsinaki  horsemen  in  1049.  While  serving  in  the  army 
of  Constantine  X  Monomachos  in  Asia  Minor,  they  were 
seized  with  a  sudden  wild  desire  to  return  to  their  own 
country,  between  the  Danube  and  the  Balkans.  Deserting 
in  a  body,  they  galloped  to  the  Asiatic  shore,  and  found 
there  no  means  of  crossing.  "  Then,"  as  Kedrenos  tells 
the  story,  "  Kalalim,  their  leader,  shouted,  '  Let  him  who 
wishes  follow ! '  and  spurred  into  the  sea.  Seeing  this, 
one  man  did  the  same,  and  then  another,  and  at  once  all 
the  host.  Swimming  as  in  a  race,  they  crossed,  and  came 
safe  through,  some  with  their  arms,  and  some  without." 

The  Bosphorus  changes  its  direction  at  Roumeli  Hissar, 
and  its  banks  contract.  The  locality  was  anciently  called 
Hermaion,  from  a  temple  of  Hermes,  but  the  lively  fancy 


THE  BOSPHORUS  167 

of  the  Greeks  has  given  it  many  other  names,  derived 
from  the  violence  of  the  current  as  it  dashes  by  the  point, 
—  Laimokopion,  the  Cutthroat;  Phoneas,  the  Murderer; 
Phonema,  the  Roaring ;  Kyon,  the  Dog ;  Rheuma  ton 
Diabolou,  the  Current  of  the  Devil.  The  Ottomans  call 
the  point  Kizlar  Bournou,  the  Cape  of  the  Women,  from 
the  tradition  of  a  fair  sultana,  who,  with  her  attendant 
train,  was  wrecked  off  the  promontory,  and  swept  away 
in  the  pitiless  waves.  All  the  rest  have  been  supplanted 
with  reason  by  the  name  Roumeli  Hissar,  the  Castle  of 
Europe. 

Though  the  fortress  is  in  perfect  preservation,  still  it  is 
now  only  an  aesthetic  ruin,  useless  in  attack  and  powerless 
in  defence,  despite  its  height  and  immensity.  Yet  no 
more  momentous  event  ever  took  place  upon  the  Bos- 
phorus  than  its  erection.  When,  in  1451,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two,  Mohammed  II  ascended  the  Ottoman  throne, 
his  all-absorbing  desire  was  the  acquisition  of  Constanti- 
nople. No  sultan  was  ever  more  impetuous,  and  none 
was  better  able  to  temper  natural  impetuosity  by  self- 
control.  The  possessions  of  the  Byzantine  Empire  had 
been  peeled  away  till  almost  nothing  except  its  capital 
was  left.  To  isolate  that  capital  was  his  first  concern. 
Master  of  Gallipoli  and  the  Dardanelles,  could  he  make 
himself  likewise  master  of  the  Bosphorus,  grain-ships 
would  be  no  longer  able  to  descend  from  the  Black  Sea, 
and  the  doomed  city  would  be  cut  off  from  food  and 
succor. 

With  an  army  to  which  Constantine  XIII  could  offer 
no  resistance,  save  by  ineffectual  protests  and  appeals  to 
still  existing  treaties,  he  encamped  upon  the  strait.  On 
March  26,  1452,  the  Sultan  himself  laid  the  first  stone. 
By  the  middle  of  the  following  August  the  fortress  was 


108  CO  XS  T.  1 NTINOPL  E 

finished.  The  forests  of  Asia  Minor  furnished  timber. 
The  European  shore  was  made  a  desert  that  its  demol- 
ished churches  and  palaces  might  provide  marble  and 
stone.  Further  materials  were  obtained  from  still  gaping 
quarries.  Michael  Dukas,  who  was  then  alive,  and  who 
perhaps  saw  the  scene  which  he  describes,  says  that  the 
work  was  divided  out  to  a  thousand  master-builders,  to 
each  of  whom  four  masons  were  assigned,  and  that  the 
common  workmen  were  countless.  Every  evening  gifts, 
or  the  bowstring,  expressed  the  Sultan's  satisfaction  or 
discontent  with  the  progress  of  the  day. 

By  a  strange  caprice,  the  circumference  was  made  to 
outline  the  name  of  the  Prophet  and  of  the  Sultan.  Ara- 
bic scholars  assert  that  the  four  consonants,  Mini,  Heh, 
Mini,  Dal,  are  best  recognized  in  calligraphic  distinctness 
from  the  opposite  Asiatic  side.  At  the  two  landward 
corners,  and  close  to  the  water,  were  the  enormous  round 
towers,  one  each  constructed  by  the  rival  pashas  and 
vizirs,  Khalil,  Saganos,  and  Saridja.  It  was  the  Sultan's 
verdict  that  that  of  Khalil  was  thicker,  stronger,  and  of 
better  workmanship  than  the  other  two. 

The  cannon-ball  then  affixed  in  the  outer  wall  of  the 
southwestern  tower,  as  proclamation  of  defiance  to  the 
Byzantine  Empire,  remains  in  position  to  this  day.  So, 
too,  does  the  Arabic  letter  Mini  on  a  marble  over  every 
gate.  So,  too,  does  the  human  head  and  bust  of  porphyry 
in  the  western  face  of  the  northwestern  tower.  Ottoman 
superstition  regards  the  latter  as  a  portion  of  the  body  of 
an  Arab  woman  who  jeered  at  the  workmen,  and  was  by 
Allah  converted  into  stone.  Thus  she  was  made  to  con- 
tribute to  the  undertaking  at  which  she  had  impiously 
scoffed.  The  first  blood  shed  in  the  fortress  was  that  of 
two  ambassadors  of  Constantine  XIII,  put  to  death  in 
August,  WW1. 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


169 


The  fortification  completed,  the  real  investment  of  Con- 
stantinople had  begun.  In  the  tower  of  Khalil  were 
placed  cannon  which  launched  balls  of  six  hundred  pounds' 
weight.  Every  vessel  on  coming  opposite  was  now  obliged 
to  furl  its  sails,  and  -^_. 

send  a  boat  ashore 
to  pay  toll,  and  re- 
ceive permission  to 
pass.  A  Venetian 
galley  disregarded 
the  summons.  It 
was  sunk  by  a  ball, 
and  its  crew  were 
butchered  as  they 
swam  to  the  land. 
Mohammed  placed 
in  the  fortress  a 
garrison  of  four 
hundred  picked 
men,  confided  the 
command  to  Finis 
Agha,  and  returned 
to  Adrianople  to 
press  on  his  prepa- 
rations for  the  siege. 

After  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  the  fortress  became  a 
prison  of  state,  to  whose  keeping  only  persons  of  distinc- 
tion were  confided.  Its  first  involuntarv  inmates  were  a 
few  Knights  of  Saint  John  from  Rhodes.  Baron  Wen- 
ceslas  Wratislaw  has  left  a  pathetic  narrative  of  his  own 
three  years'  captivity  in  the  tower  erected  by  Khalil  Pasha 
near  the  water.  To  it  he  always  applies  a  single  descrip- 
tive epithet  of  horror,  calling  it  the  Black  Tower.     Its 


The  Tower  of  Blood 


170 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


common  name  among  the  Ottomans  is  no  less  significant, 
—  the  Traitor's  Tower,  or  the  Tower  of  Blood. 

Kyril  Lonkaris,  five  times  Ecumenical  Patriarch,  friend 
of  William  Laud,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  donor  to 
England  of  the  priceless  Codex  Alexaiidrinus,  was  stran- 
gled hi  the  same  tower  in  1638.  The  body  of  the  ven- 
erable prelate  was  dragged  by  a  rope  around  the  neck 
through  the  low-arched  gate,  which  opens  upon  the  quay, 
and  thrown  into   the  water.     In  more  recent  times,  the 

fortress  was  used  as 

"  IN 


a  common  jail  for 
the  confinement  of 
criminals  and  sus- 
pected persons, 
whatever  their  rank. 
Executions  were  fre- 
quentj.mvariably  an- 
nounced by  the  sul- 
len boom  of  a  gun.  The  remains  of  whoever  thus  met  his 
fate  were  tied  up  hi  a  hempen  sack,  carried  in  a  small  boat 
a  short  distance  from  the  shore,  and  dropped  overboard 
into  the  sea. 

The  stronghold,  now  without  either  garrison  or  sentinel, 
retains  nothing  of  its  former  martial  air.  Crowds  of  chil- 
dren play  in  its  enclosure,  and  houses  perch  like  nests 
upon  its  walls.  It  is  inhabited  by  a  kindly  Ottoman  pop- 
ulation, who  intermarry  with  one  another,  are  esteemed  by 
their  co-religionists  a  peculiar  people,  and  claim  to  be  lin- 
eal descendants  of  Firus  Agha  and  his  four  hundred.  The 
conical  leaden  roofs  have  disappeared ;  the  floorings  in 
some  of  the  circular  towers  have  fallen  in  or  been  de- 
stroyed ;  the  ponderous  outer  oaken  doors,  sheathed  in 
brass  and  iron,  and  hung  upon  their  hinges  forty  years 


The  Western  Tower 


172  CONSTANTINOPLE 

before  America  was  discovered,  are  partially  decayed. 
Nevertheless,  were  the  Sultan  to  return  to  earth  from  the 
paradise  where  Mussulman  heroes  go,  he  would  iind  his 
fortress  almost  unchanged. 

I  stand  on  Roumeli  Hissar 

While  the  rich  sunset's  splendor  pours, 
And  drink  the  scene  anear,  afar, 

From  the  grim  fortress'  stately  towers: 
The  sky's  deep  arch  ahove  me  rolled; 
To  west,  the  fiery  tints  of  gold; 
And  all  the  rainbow's  colors  fused  in  one  divine  accord, 
As  if  in  rivalry  intent  to  glorify  the  Lord. 

Beneath  the  shade  of  passing  cloud, 

Tossed  on  from  wave  and  silver  stream, 
The  hills,  with  living  souls  endowed, 

Like  grim,  defiant  Titans  seem. 
E'en  as  'neath  childhood's  wondering  eyes, 
The  boundless  realm  of  dreamland  lies, 
So.  'neath  me  from  my  airy  height  far  as  the  eye  can  see, 
O'er  Europe's  vales  and  Asia's  plains  is  spread  infinity. 

The  tinkling  hells  of  distant  flocks, 

The  cypress'  sigh  o'er  Moslem  graves, 
The  peewit's  chirp  amid  the  rocks, 

The  splash  of  oars  in  golden  waves, 
The  music  of  a  distant  flute, — 
All  else  as  death's  own  stillness  mute, 
Or  silent  as  yon  crumbling  wall  of  the  low,  dark  tekieh, 
Whence  Turkish  fire  and  dervish  zeal  long  since  have  died  away. 

And  yet  they  built  this  calm  Hissar, 

Whence  one  scarce  lists  a  wild  bird's  cry, 
To  clanging  sound  of  Moslem  war 

When  the  relentless  siege  was  nigh. 
Here  first  Mohammed's  boding  tread 
Smote  on  the  Emperor's  heart  with  dread, 
Till,  swooping  from  this  eyried  height,  he  made  the  realm  his  own, 
And  on  the  last  great  Grecian's  corpse  built  up  a  gory  throne. 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


173 


Sole  vestige  of  the  mighty  hosts 

Who  woke  this  hill  with  shout  and  song, 
The  white  towers  stand  like  sheeted  ghosts, 

Bound  which  unnumbered  memories  throng: 
The  Koran,  preached  with  tire  and  sword, 
With  poisoned  dart  and  bowstring  cord; 
The  blackened  fields,  the  trodden  grain,  the  shriek  of  wild  despair 
Which  four  long  centuries  have  not  hushed,  still  reach  me  through 
the  air. 


Robert  College  in  1871 


The  Fortress  of  the  Conqueror  and  Robert  College ! 
No  sharper  contrast  does  the  world  present  than  these 
two  structures,  whose  territories  touch,  and  which  are 
themselves  but  a  stone's  throw  apart.  The  college  was 
opened  at  Bebek  in  1863.  Outgrowing  its  quarters,  it 
was  removed  to  Roumeli  Hissar  eight  years  later.  The 
chief  donor  was  Mr.  C.  R.  Robert,  a  wealthy  merchant  of 


174  CONSTANTINOPLE 

New  York  City,  whose  name  it  bears.  It  was  the  ambi- 
tion of  its  founders  to  provide  for  the  young  men  of  this 
strategic  centre  an  education  similar  in  aim  and  scope  to 
the  best  attainable  in  the  colleges  of  America.  Any 
purpose  to  interfere  with  religious  opinions  was  distinctly 
disavowed.  The  one  design  was  to  develop  men.  No 
institution  was  ever  more  opportunely  founded.  None 
was  ever  planted  at  a  point  of  wider  and  more  enduring 
influence.  Its  achievement  and  success  are  in  part  repre- 
sented by  the  many  who  have  received  its  diploma.  Its 
still  larger  results  in  affecting  the  life  of  a  community 
and  in  moulding  ideas  cannot  be  adecpiately  set  forth. 
From  the  grounds  of  the  college  a  view  of  exceeding 
variety  and  beauty  is  afforded. 

Most  of  the  people  of  the  village  live  outside  the  walls 
of  the  fortress.  The  majority  are  Ottomans.  In  the  death, 
three  years  ago,  of  His  Highness  Achmet  Vefik  Pasha, 
twice  Grand  Vizir,  former  ambassador  to  Teheran,  Paris, 
and  Saint  Petersburg,  at  times  governor  of  the  largest 
and  most  important  provinces,  the  village  lost  its  most 
eminent  inhabitant,  and  the  Empire  a  patriotic  and  distin- 
guished subject.  A  polyglot  in  speech,  possessed  of  wide 
and  varied  learning,  simple  and  unaffected  as  a  child  de- 
spite the  courtliness  and  dignity  of  his  bearing,  the  soul  of 
honor,  a  statesman  without  fear  and  without  reproach, 
scrupulously  faithful  to  the  requirements  of  his  Mussul- 
man creed,  while  most  tolerant  of  the  beliefs,  and  even  of 
the  prejudices,  of  other  men,  he  would  have  been  an  honor 
to  any  race,  and  embodied  all  that  was  best  in  his  own. 
I  recall  gratefully  the  many  hours  I  have  passed  under 
his  hospitable  roof,  and  pay  my  reverent  tribute  to  his 
memory. 

On  the  northern  brow  of  the  hill,  a  small  Armenian 


176  COXs '/'.  I NTINOPLE 

community  cluster  around  their  hum!  tie  Church  of  Saint 
Santoukt.  This  lady  was  the  daughter  of  the  pagan 
Armenian  king  Sanadruch.  She  was  put  to  death  by  her 
own  father,  who,  in  his  hatred  for  the  new  faith,  spared 
not  even  the  members  of  his  own  family.  The  Armenians 
believe  they  revere  in  their  ancient  princess  the  first  female 
martyr  to  Christianity. 

The  next  rift  in  the  hills  is  Balta  Liman,  the  Harbor 
of  Balta,  known  in  classic  days  as  Gynaikon  Limen,  or 
Limen  Phidalias.  It  is  a  verdant  valley,  through  which 
wanders  a  tiny  stream,  crossed  by  a  romantic  bridge.  The 
earlier  names  perpetuate  legends.  The  first  immortalized 
the  heroism  of  the  Byzantine  women  in  the  crisis  of  their 
just-planted  colony.  In  the  absence  of  the  men,  Byzan- 
tium was  attacked  by  a  crowd  from  the  neighboring  peo- 
ples, who  thought  the  city  would  thus  fall  an  easy  prey. 
Not  only  did  the  women  repulse  the  enemy,  but  pursued 
them  as  far  as  this  valley,  which  thus  became  a  memorial 
of  their  prowess.  The  second  name,  like  Sappho's  Rock 
in  Leucadia,  was  associated  with  a  tale  of  love  and  de- 
spair. Phidalia  had  wedded  the  gallant  Greek  stranger 
Byzas.  For  this  she  was  cursed  by  her  father,  the  native 
King  Barbyses,  as  a  traitor  to  her  family  and  her  gods. 
Tormented  by  the  furies,  she  fled  hither  over  the  hills, 
and,  hopeless  of  other  deliverance,  threw  herself  into  the 
Bosphorus.  Poseidon,  moved  with  compassion,  touched 
her  with  his  trident,  and  converted  her  into  a  rock,  which 
for  centuries  emphasized  parental  counsels  to  love-lorn 
maidens. 

The  modern  name  has  sterner  associations.  Balta  was 
a  man  of  Bulgarian  origin.  Captured  in  childhood  by  the 
Ottomans,  he  was  circumcised  and  made  a  Mussulman. 
Finally,  he  attained  the  rank  of  Kapouclan  Pasha,  or  Chief 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


177 


Admiral  of  the  fleet.  Here  his  vessels  rendezvoused  in 
1453,  when  preparing  for  the  final  siege.  Unable  to  pre- 
vent the  victorious  entry  of  five  Christian  galleys  into 
the  Golden  Horn,  he  was  bastinadoed  by  the  hand  of 
Mohammed  II  himself.  His  life  was  saved  only  by  the 
interference  of  the  janissaries,  who  forced  the  Sultan  to 
desist,  and  repeated 
the  saying  current 
among  the  Otto- 
mans that  Allah 
had  given  the  land 
to  the  Mussulmans, 
but  the  sea  to  the 
Giaours. 

The  substantial 
palace  close  by  was 
the  residence  of  the 
Grand  Vizir  of  Sul- 
tan Abd-ul  Medjid, 
Reshid  Pasha,  who 
died  in  1857,  the  co- 
adjutor and  almost 
tool  of  Lord  Strat- 
ford de  Redcliife, 
"the  Great  Ambas- 
sador." In  it  were  signed  the  treaty  of  the  Five  Powers, 
in  1841,  and  the  convention  regulating  the  Danubian 
Provinces,  in  1849. 

Boadjikeui,  the  Village  of  the  Dyers,  borders  a  hill  cov- 
ered with  luxuriant  chestnut  woods.  It  is  inhabited  only 
by  Christians.  It  possesses  a  single  claim  to  distinction 
as  the  birthplace,  and  now  the  residence,  of  the  revered 
and  illustrious  Ecumenical  Patriarch,  Joachim  III.     Pro- 

VOL.  I.  — 12 


Patriarch  Joachim  III 


178  CONSTANTINOPLE 

founclly  versed  in  the  theology  of  his  church;,  educated  in 
Western  Europe,  a  friend  of  learning  and  progress,  self- 
sacrificing  and  tireless  in  effort  to  better  the  condition  of 
his  fellow-Christians,  he  was  eminently  qualified  for  the 
responsibilities  of  his  exalted  position.  Though  idolized 
by  the  common  people,  lie  encountered  the  determined 
opposition  of  the  higher  clergy,  and.  after  four  years'  faith- 
ful service,  resigned  his  patriarchate  in  1882. 

East  and  north  of  the  chestnut-wooded  hill  lies  Emir- 
ghian,  esteemed  a  paradise  by  the  Persians  and  Egyptians, 
who  crowd  under  its  plane-trees  and  cypresses,  and  revel 
in  its  grassy  gardens.  It  derives  its  name  from  a  Persian 
noble,  intrusted  by  Shah  Tahmasp  with  the  defence  of  the 
important  frontier  fortress  of  Erivan.  This  stronghold  he 
surrendered  to  Mourad  IV  in  1635.  Intoxicated  with  joy 
at  its  capture,  whereby  he  was  seated  firmly  on  his  throne, 
the  Sultan  ordered  that  Constantinople  should  be  illumi- 
nated "  as  it  had  never  been  before,"  and  that  his  brothers 
Bayezid  and  Souleiman  should  at  once  be  put  to  death. 
In  the  murder  of  the  former,  Racine  found  the  theme  of 
his  thrilling  tragedy  "  Bajazet."  The  written  drama,  the 
murder,  the  fratricidal  order,  the  surrender  of  Erivan,  are 
links  in  association  to  this  village,  and  to  the  Persian, 
who.  a  fugitive  from  his  own  country,  here  squandered  in 
sumptuous  living  the  payment  of  his  treason,  and  was  here 
bowstrung  six  years  later  by  Sultan  Ibrahim. 

On  the  tiny  cape  at  the  northern  extremity  of  Emir- 
ghian  once  stood  the  temple  of  the  gloomy  goddess  Hecate. 
From  her  the  whole  region  was  called  Hecateion.  The 
site  is  occupied  by  the  sumptuous  palace  built  by  the 
fierce  Hosrev  Pasha,  favorite  of  Mahmoud  II,  and  his 
most  efficient  weapon  in  the  destruction  of  the  janissaries. 
Hosrev  Pasha,  before  his  death,  rounded  out  seventy  years 


THE  BOSPHORUS  179 

of  government  service,  passing  off  the  stage  at  the  age  of 
ninety-five,  his  eye  not  dim,  nor  Ins  natural  force  abated. 
The  palace  finally  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Egyp- 
tian viceroys.  In  it  died,  in  March,  1895,  the  deposed 
Khedive  of  Egypt,  Ismail  Pasha,  who,  together  with  De 
Lesseps,  created  the  Suez  Canal,  and  whose  name  twenty 
years  ago  was  the  synonym  of  despotic  extravagance  and 
achievement. 

The  Bay  of  Stenia,  the  Narrows,  half  a  mile  in  length, 
is  a  miniature  Golden  Horn.  Protected  on  three  sides  by 
hills,  unapproachable  by  the  winds  which  rage  without,  it 
is  the  broadest,  deepest,  and  safest  of  all  the  bays  of  the 
Bosphorus.  Here  was  the  invariable  assembling-place  of 
the  barbarian  hordes  which,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  ravaged 
the  country  by  land  or  sea,  and  even  sometimes  assailed 
the  capital.  On  the  south  side  of  the  bay  is  the  elegant 
summer  palace  of  the  Persian  Embassy.  There  was  a 
temple  of  Zeus  Ourios  somewhere  near  the  shore.  This 
Constantine  converted  into  a  church  consecrated  to  the 
archangel  Michael.  The  villagers  believe  that  the  mod- 
ern Greek  Church  of  the  Holy  Archangels  is  situated  on 
the  very  spot. 

Yenikeui  is  fantastic  with  its  buildings,  which  overhang 
the  water,  and  with  its  suggestive  airiness.  It  is  a  charm- 
ing place,  —  cleanly,  orderly,  and  prosperous.  The  resi- 
dents are  almost  wholly  Greek,  though  comprising  some 
wealthy  Armenian  and  Ottoman  families.  The  well-paved 
streets,  the  attractive  houses,  the  churches  and  schools, 
give  to  its  whole  appearance  the  air  of  a  typical  Greek 
village. 

In  Yenikeui,  Marion  Crawford  locates  the  climax  of  his 
weird  story  of  "  Paul  Patoff ."  One  seeks  for  the  street 
over  which   Griggs  and  Balsamides  rolled  in  their  mid- 


180  CONSTANTINOPLE 

night  ride,  and  he  queries  where  was  the  house  of  Laleli 
Khanuni  and  the  cell  of  Alexander.  The  real  tragedies 
of  which  the  village  has  been  the  scene  equal  in  interest, 
and  surpass  in  horror,  the  romantic  creation  of  the  bril- 
liant novelist. 

Old  men  still  repeat  in  hushed  tones  the  story  of  the 
Douzoglous,  though  it  took  place  seventy-six  years  ago. 
Their  family  consisted  of  the  mother,  —  a  noble  and 
queenly  woman,  —  and  of  her  grown-up  children,  five 
sons  and  two  daughters.  The  lucrative  position  of  chief 
goldsmith  and  expert  in  precious  stones  to  the  Sultan  had 
been  hereditary  in  their  house  over  two  hundred  years. 
That  family  had  enjoyed  the  favor  of  twelve  successive 
sultans,  and  had  amassed  enormous  wealth,  and  acquired 
distinguished  honor.  In  a  night  everything  was  changed. 
Accusation  and  condemnation  came  together.  Four  broth- 
ers were  hung  from  the  windows  of  their  still  standing 
mansion.  The  mother  and  the  daughters  died  of  grief, 
and  their  kinsfolk  were  ruined  and  exiled.  Soon  after, 
their  entire  innocence  was  proved,  their  slanderers  were 
punished,  and  the  surviving  brother  was  set  free. 

Another  house,  a  colossal  ruin,  given  by  the  Ottoman 
Government  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  Embassy  a  few 
years  ago,  could  unfold  a  tale  almost  as  tragic.  In  its 
erection  the  Armenian  banker,  Djezaerli,  had  already  ex- 
pended over  a  million  dollars,  and  it  was  far  from  com- 
pletion, when  he  too  was  condemned  on  a  sudden  charge. 
His  property  was  confiscated,  and  he  soon  died  of  despair. 
None  dared  to  come  to  the  assistance  of  his  stricken  wife. 
The  dainty  lady  for  a  time  eked  out  a  meagre  livelihood 
by  the  humblest  labor,  but  succumbed  at  last  to  want  and 
exhaustion. 

Ever  since  leaving  Roumeli  Hissar,  the  Bosphorus  has 


THE  BOSPHORUS  181 

seemed  shut  in  upon  the  north  by  the  sharp  cape  of  Yeni- 
keui,  the  New  Village.  Its  imposing  headland  advances 
arrogantly  into  the  strait  toward  the  Asiatic  shore,  which 
recedes  before  it ;  meanwhile,  the  Bosphorus  reverses  its 
former  course,  swinging  by  a  full  right  angle  from  the 
northeast  to  the  northwest.  Despite  the  light-ship,  which 
gives  distinct  warning  afar,  vessels  are  here  often  swept 
landward  to  destruction  by  the  violence  of  the  current. 

As  one  rounds  the  point,  the  landscape  changes.  For  a 
distance,  houses  no  longer  border  the  narrow  quay.  An 
earthwork,  with  half  a  dozen  guns,  is  the  first  reminder 
that  hostile  fleets  may  some  day  descend  the  Bosphorus 
from  the  north. 

Farther  on,  the  imperial  Kiosk  of  Kalender  emerges 
from  its  background  of  leafy  groves,  an  exquisite  gem  of 
Eastern  architecture.  On  bright  summer  afternoons  its 
grounds  are  the  gay  resort  of  pleasure-seeking  foreigners. 
In  the  spring  of  1812,  in  this  kiosk,  was  fought  the  diplo- 
matic battle  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  on  whose 
issue  depended  the  outcome  of  Napoleon's  Russian  cam- 
paign, and  the  whole  subsequent  history  of  the  French 
Emperor.  Napoleon,  at  the  head  of  the  mightiest  army 
of  modern  times,  was  about  to  undertake  his  stupendous 
march  against  Russia.  The  united  resources  of  the  Mus- 
covite Empire  would,  perhaps,  be  insufficient  to  resist  the 
terrible  invader.  Russia  and  Turkey  were  then  engaged 
in  a  desperate  war ;  the  ablest  Russian  generals  and  the 
flower  of  the  Russian  army  had  long  been  fully  occupied 
on  the  southwest.  Peace  between  Russia  and  Turkey  was 
an  absolute  necessity  to  the  former,  and  of  the  highest 
moment  to  Great  Britain,  the  unswerving  enemy  of 
France.  Every  apparent  interest  of  Turkey  favored  the 
prosecution  of   the   war.      But  at  Tilsit  (1806)  she  had 


182  CONSTANTINOPLE 

been  abandoned  by  Napoleon.  The  sting  of  this  desertion 
had  never  ceased  to  rankle  in  the  breast  of  the  Ottomans  ; 
at  the  next  Franco-Russian  treaty,  might  they  not  be 
abandoned  again  ? 

Sir  Stratford  Canning,  afterwards  Lord  Stratford  de 
Redcliffe,  then  a  young  man  of  twenty-five,  was  Great 
Britain's  representative  to  the  Porte.  No  other  British 
ambassador  to  Constantinople  has  ever  approached  him 
in  astuteness,  persuasiveness,  and  persistence.  General 
Count  Anclreossy,  the  French  ambassador,  was  no  mean 
antagonist.  The  struggle  went  on  for  weeks  and  months. 
Finally,  one  more  interview  took  place  between  Sir  Strat- 
ford Canning;  and  the  Ottoman  ministers  in  this  kiosk. 
It  was  continuous,  and  it  lasted  sixteen  hours.  Physically 
worn  out,  the  Ottomans  gave  way,  and  accepted  in  full 
the  British  proposals.  In  consequence,  a  treaty  between 
Russia  and  Turkey  was  signed  at  Bucharest  on  May  28, 
1812.  At  last  Kutusoff,  Tchihatcheff,  and  then  veterans, 
were  set  free  to  swell  the  hosts  of  defensive  Russia.  Their 
northward  march  from  the  frontiers  of  Turkey  was  the 
beginning  of  Napoleon's  journey  to  Saint  Helena.  The 
calm  Duke  of  Wellington  speaks  of  this  achievement  of 
diplomacy,  which  was  crowned  in  this  Kiosk  of  Kalencler, 
as  "  the  most  important  service  that  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of 
any  man  to  perform." 

The  road  follows  the  quay,  passing  the  arched  vault 
of  an  ancient  ruin,  in  which  humble  devotion  has  fash- 
ioned a  praying-place,  where  a  candle  is  always  burn- 
ing before  a  wretched  picture  of  the  Virgin.  This  is 
the  ayasma,  or  sacred  fountain,  of  Saint  John  the  Bap- 
tist. In  the  "Boyhood  of  Christ,"  Uncle  Midas  refers 
reverently  to  this  inartistic  chapel,  and  to  the  worship 
there  offered,  as  acceptably  "  as  if  it  had  been  rendered 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


183 


with  organ  accompaniments  amidst  the  splendors  of 
Saint  Peter's." 

Therapia  and  Buyoukdereh  are  unlike  all  the  other  vil- 
lages on  the  Bosphorns.  They  are  periodically  swinging 
back  and  forth  from  populous  activity  to  dreariness  and 
desertion.  In  winter  they  are  most  uninviting  habita- 
tions, incessantly  scourged  by  merciless  blasts  from  the 
Black  Sea.  With  the  coining  of  spring,  they  banish  their 
desolation.  Doors,  closed  and  barred  for  months,  are 
thrown  wide 
open.  The 
tide  of  hu- 
man beings 
begins  its 
impetuous 
flow  to  them 
from  Per  a 
and  Galata. 
Every  sum- 
mer embas- 
sy, hotel, 
and  private 
dwell  in  g 

bubbles  with  new-come,  overflowing  life.  The  qua)',  the 
water,  the  balconies,  the  drawing-rooms,  are  surrendered 
to  emulous  display  of  gayety  and  fashion,  lint  all  of  the 
monotonous  European  type,  with  no  personality  of  its 
own.  Yet,  though  the  costume  is  Parisian,  it  is  a  most 
cosmopolitan  assembly  that  puts  it  on. 

Therapia  bends  like  a  crescent  around  its  bay.  The 
German,  French,  Italian,  and  British  embassies  are  at 
short  distances  from  one  another,  near  the  shore.  The 
British  Embassy  is  an  edifice  of  indescribable  architectural 


British  Embassy  at  Therapia 


184  CONSTANTIN  OPL  E 

design,  overhung  by  a  giant  rock  and  a  forest-covered  hill, 
built  on  the  most  conspicuous  and  wind-swept  point  of  the 
upper  Bosphorus.  The  house,  the  third  from  it  on  the 
north,  quaint  in  appearance,  with  ivied  terraces  and  splen- 
did trees,  was  the  summer  residence  of  General  and  Mrs 
Lew  Wallace.  Greek,  Catholic,  and  Protestant  churches 
alternate  with  one  another. 

Till  long  after  Christ  the  name  of  the  village  was  Phar- 
niakia,  the  Place  of  Drugs  or  Poisons,  —  a  reminder  of  the 
Argonauts  and  Medea.  According  to  tradition,  Medea, 
having  safely  arrived  thus  far  in  her  flight  with  Jason 
from  Colchis,  deemed  her  box  of  drugs  no  longer  neces- 
sary, and  threw  it  away.  The  goodly  Patriarch  Attikos, 
in  the  fifth  century,  was  scandalized  that  a  place  of  so 
salubrious  air  should  be  burdened  with  an  ill-omened 
and  pagan  name.  "  Let  it  be  called  Therapia,  Place  of 
Healing,"  he  said,  and  so  it  has  been  to  this  day.  It  is 
the  episcopal  seat  of  the  Bishop  of  Derkon,  who  bears  the 
sounding  title  of  "  Very  Reverend  Lord  of  the  Bosphorus 
and  of  the  Cyanean  Isles." 

The  boundary  between  Therapia  and  Buyoukdereh  is 
marked  by  Kiredj  Bournou,  the  Lime  Cape,  bleak,  despite 
its  refreshing  plane-trees.  From  it,  through  the  hills,  one 
catches  his  first  glimpse  of  the  dread  Black  Sea.  To 
friendly  mariners  upon  that  sea,  Kiredj  Bournou  flashes  a 
welcome  from  its  lighthouse,  and  for  foes  it  has  a  warning 
ready  in  its  battery  of  fourteen  guns.  To  the  left,  on  the 
cliff  above,  are  the  -remains  of  a  village,  its  history  lost 
and  forgotten,  abandoned  centuries  ago.  On  the  right,  in 
the  water,  might  be  seen  till  recently  the  boulder,  Dikaia 
Petra,  the  Just  Rock,  of  whose  intelligence  and  integrity 
the  sailors  to  this  day  narrate  marvellous  tales. 

The  northern  winds  with  unobstructed  fury  batter  the 


THE  BOSPHQRUS 


185 


abrupt,  bald  hillside.  The  dreary  road  continues  along  the 
quay,  past  the  long-since  ruined  Church  of  Saint  Euphe- 
mia ;  past  Table  Rock,  dear  to  fishermen ;  past  Aghatch 
Alti,  with  its  six  trees  and  six  cannon ;  past  the  hamlet 
of  Kepheli,  with  its  memories  of  Crimean  exiles.  At  last, 
in  the  depth  of  the  bay,  it  attains  the  wide  meadow, 
Buyoukdereh,  the  Great  Valley,  beyond  which  lies  the  vil- 
lage of  that  name. 


Plane-trek  of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon 


This  meadow  was  beloved  by  the  ancient  and  mediaeval 
Byzantines.  Their  imagination  bestowed  upon  it  many 
endearing  names,  almost  all  commencing  with  Broad  or 
Deep.  To  the  common  husbandman  it  is  still  pre-emi- 
nently the  Good  Field,  because  of  its  fertility.  This  val- 
ley was  a  frequent  and  favorite  camping-ground  of  the 
Crusaders.  Near  the  middle  is  a  monumental  plane-tree, 
or  rather  a   gigantic  clustre  of  plane-trees,  all  nourished 


186  CONSTANTINOPLE 

by  a  single  root.  Botanists  assert  that  it  lias  been  grow- 
ing more  than  nine  hundred  years.  Europeans  give  it  the 
name,  '*  Plane-tree  of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon,"  from  the  tra- 
dition that  this  Sir  Galahad  of  chivalry  planted  it  with 
his  knightly  hand  when  bivouacking  in  this  plain  with 
his  cross-bearing  host.  The  fairest  of  historians,  Anna 
Komnena,  who  was  then  alive,  distinctly  states,  however, 
that  Godfrey  never  encamped  here,  but  that  his  brother 
Crusader,  Count  Raoul  of  Flanders,  did.  with  an  army  of 
ten  thousand  men.  The  Ottomans  name  it  Kirk  Aghatch, 
the  Forty  Trees  ;  and  Yedi  Karindash,  the  Seven  Brothers. 
They  say  the  last  was  first  employed  by  Achmet  I  in 
memory  of  his  own  dead  brothers.  Under  this  tree,  in 
1807,  Kabatchioglou  and  five  hundred  desperate  men 
formed  the  conspiracy  which  resulted  four  days  later  in 
the  deposition  of  Selim  III,  and  the  enthronement  of 
Moustapha  IV. 

Westward  may  be  seen  the  graceful  aqueduct  of  Mah- 
moud  I.  Following  the  road  which  winds  inland  toward 
the  northwest,  one  reaches  the  great  forest  of  Belgrade. 
There  are  the  water-sources  and  the  bends,  or  natural  res- 
ervoirs, whence  has  been  slaked  the  thirst  of  the  capital 
through  so  many  centuries.  There  are  the  hamlets  and 
villages,  lost  and  hidden  in  the  woods,  that  charmed  the 
fancy  of  always  charming  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu. 
There  is  the  historic  settlement  of  Belgrade,  peopled  by 
the  unwilling  exiles  who  were  brought  hither  by  Soule'i- 
nian  the  Magnificent,  after  his  capture  of  the  Servian 
capital. 

The  south  part  of  the  village  of  Buyoukdereh  is  inhab- 
ited by  Armenians,  Greeks,  Ottomans,  and  Jews.  North 
of  the  steamer  landing,  it  is  mainly  given  up  to  European 
foreigners.     Every  Oriental  feature  seems  eliminated.     Its 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


187 


spacious  quay,  its  stately  mansions,  its  thoroughly  western 
air,   stamp  it  with  an   individuality  of   its  own.     Partly 
sheltered  by  the  hill,  less  racked  than  Therapia  by   the 
never-ceasing  northern  wind,  yet  always  the    beneficiary 
of  the  delicious  coolness,  it  is  in  summer  the  most  delight- 
ful habitation  on  the  Bosphorus.     Justinian  erected  here 
a  church  to  Saint  Theodore  of  Tyrone,  in  which  for  genera- 
tions the  emperors  worshipped  on  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent. 
It   possessed 
a  monastery 
of  the   Holy 
Martyrs, 
built,  in  803, 
by  Saint  Ta- 
rasios,  "the 
most    holy 
and  most  or- 
thodox,"   in 
which  he  was 
himself  bur- 
ied. In  it  the 
Emperor  Leo 
V  confined 
the  Empress 
Prokopia  and 

her  two  daughters,  after  he  had  robbed  their  husband  and 
father,  Michael  I,  of  the  throne. 

The  modern  church  of  the  Armenians  is  consecrated  to 
Saint  Hcripsima,  one  of  the  glorious  women  of  their  na- 
tional history.  She  preferred  martyrdom  to  a  crown 
which  might  have  been  hers,  had  she  accepted  marriage 
with  a  pagan  king.  In  a  kiosk  in  the  garden  of  the  Aus- 
trian Embassy,  Thomas  Hope  composed  his  romance,  "An- 


The  Russian  Embassy  at  Buyoukdereii 


188  CONSTANTINOPLE 

astasias,  or  the  Memoirs  of  a  Modern  Greek,"  which 
created  an  excitement  in  the  literary  world  seventy-five 
years  ago.  The  Russian  Embassy  is  the  farthest  north  of 
all  the  summer  ambassadorial  structures.  It  is  simple, 
symmetrical,  and  elegant.  The  dark  hill  and  forest  be- 
hind add  to  its  effectiveness,  and  make  its  proportions 
stand  out  in  graceful  relief.  Marion  Crawford  spent 
many  months  near  by  in  a  romantic  kiosk,  that  seems 
pendent  upon  the  hill.  There  he  wrote  "  The  American 
Politician"  and  "Paul  Patoff,"  and  meanwhile,  best  of 
all.  Avon  his  beautiful  bride. 

Buyoukdereh  ends  at  Mezar  Bournou,  the  Cape  of  the 
Tomb.  A  sombre  title  well  befits  the  spot,  for  the  outlook 
from  it  is  grand  and  solemn.  The  opposite  Asiatic  shore 
is  bare  and  gaunt,  and  on  the  European  side  human  habi- 
tations seem  left  behind.  Here  in  classic  times  a  statue 
of  Aphrodite  Pandemos  rose  above  the  water,  doubtless 
the  offering  to  her  patron  goddess  of  the  Megarian  Simai- 
thra,  a  lady  equally  fair  and  frail.  The  name  of  the 
quiet  inland  quarter,  Bulbul  Mahalleh,  the  Village  of  the 
Nightingales,  is  appropriate  in  its  suggestiveness  of  mel- 
ody and  rest.  Farther  in  are  Sari  Yer,  the  Yellow  Place, 
where  a  persistent  English  company  have  sunk  an  untold 
amount  of  gold  in  digging  after  copper ;  and  Kastaneh 
Sou,  the  Chestnut  Spring,  —  an  Oriental  Eden  of  chestnut 
groves  and  crystal  brooks  and  perfect  peace. 

Still  farther  north,  adventurous  Greeks  have  perched  Yeni 
Mahalleh,  the  New  Village,  upon  the  hills.  It  is  .set  in  a 
framework  of  clayey  cliffs,  and  surrounded  by  a  high-built 
wall,  that  the  rushing  torrents  of  winter  may  not  wash  it 
away.  Enterprise  has  planted  the  public  garden  of  Bella 
Vista  in  a  situation  glorious  as  an  eyry.  Somewhere 
here    stood   the   temples  of  Rhea  and  Apollo,  and  after- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  189 

wards,  on  their  sites,  the  churches  of  the  Holy  Virgin  and 
Saint  Nicholas ;  but  all  vestiges  of  church  and  temple  are 
equally  gone. 

Northward  from  this  point  both  the  European  and  Asi- 
atic banks  show  visible  and  continuous  marks  of  volcanic 
origin.  The  plateau  west  of  Yeni  Mahalleh  is  described 
by  Choiseul  Gouffier  as  "  a  veritable  Phlegrean  plain,  the 
burned  soil  of  which  presents  traces  of  numerous  little 
craters,  once  breathing-holes  of  subterranean  fires,  which 
have  calcined  all  this  region,  and  reduced  the  greater  part 
of  the  soil  to  a  real  pozzolana." 

Fortifications,  antiquated  and  abandoned,  and  modern 
earthworks,  glistening  with  the  newest  cannon,  succeed 
one  another  at  every  advantageous  point  as  far  as  the 
Black  Sea.  The  earlier  are  entirely  the  work  of  the 
Ottomans,  erected  in  that  proud  day  when  for  war  and 
battle  the  Ottoman  looked  only  to  himself.  Then  comes 
the  later  period  when  French  engineers,  De  Tott,  Tous- 
saint,  Meunier,  and  their  fellow-countrymen,  planned  and 
supervised  the  construction  of  every  fortress.  Their  de- 
fences, superseded  in  the  march  of  change,  are  now  patched 
and  utilized,  —  worn-out  military  garments  mended  with 
new  cloth.  To  this  class  belongs  the  renovated  semi- 
hexagonal  stone  fortress  of  Telli  Tabia,  with  its  twenty- 
four  guns,  near  Yeni  Mahalleh.  Most  recent  of  all  are 
the  earthworks,  so  constantly  modified,  or  "  strengthened 
and  extended,"  that  their  chronic  condition  is  incompletion. 

From  an  early  period  in  their  history,  the  Ottomans 
have  placed  a  peculiar,  almost  superstitious,  reliance  in  the 
possession  of  artillery.  They  believe  to-day  that  their  capi- 
tal is  impregnable.  Their  confidence  might  be  justified  if 
there  were  no  other  military  road  to  Constantinople  than 
down  their  narrow  strait.     The  frequency  of  earthworks 


190  CONS  7'.  J  XT1XOFLE 

in  the  upper  Bosphorus  and  the  multitude  of  guns  behind 
them  constitutes  a  formidable  show.  To  estimate  the 
real  efficiency  of  these  defences  in  some  possible  future  war. 
numerous  other  factors  must  be  taken  into  account. 

The  hamlet  of  Roumeli  Kavak,  the  European  Poplar,  is 
the  most  northern  station  served  by  the  local  steamers. 
The  tiny  village  is  a  growth  around  the  stone  fortress, 
erected  in  1628  by  Mourad  IV,  to  prevent  further  incur- 
sions of  the  Cossacks.  Two  years  before,  like  birds  of 
prey,  a  horde  of  that  savage  people  had  swooped  down 
over  the  Black  Sea,  in  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  their  broad 
flat-bottomed  boats,  and  had  sacked  and  burned  every 
settlement  on  the  Bosphorus  as  far  as  Boadjikeui.  The 
fortress  was  rebuilt  to  the  sound  of  drum  and  fife  in  1890. 

Such  sudden  raids  by  their  northern  neighbors  were 
through  the  Middle  Ages  the  dread  of  the  Byzantine  empe- 
rors. On  the  top  of  the  hill  behind  Roumeli  Kavak,  they 
built  a  powerful  castle,  with  a  thick,  high  wall,  descend- 
ing from  it  to  the  shore.  Thence  a  mole  of  adequate  pro- 
portions was  prolonged  part  way  across  the  strait,  and  a 
chain  stretched  from  it  to  the  Asiatic  bank.  A  like  wall 
ascended  the  opposite  Asiatic  hill  to  an  even  stronger 
castle.  Thus  the  entrance  was  effectually  closed  against 
attack  by  sea.  The  whole  outline  of  these  mediaeval  ram- 
parts can  be  traced,  and  the  still  standing  ruins  of  the 
castles,  especially  on  the  Asiatic  side,  are  majestic.  Part 
of  the  mole  has  been  destroyed  or  washed  away ;  but  as 
one  glides  over  it  in  a  boat,  he  can  discern  its  entire  form, 
surprisingly  preserved,  in  the  transparent  water.  Its  east- 
ern end,  where  the  chain  was  fastened,  is  indicated  by  a 
buoy. 

Here,  too,  are  the  yet  existing  remains  of  the  artificial 
harbor,  where,  during  the  days  of  the  Byzantine  Empire, 


192  CONSTANTINOPLE 

all  vessels,  inward  or  outward  bound,  anchored  and  paid 
toll.  It  is  a  curious  example  of  the  tenacity  of  tradition 
that  the  Ottomans,  who  themselves  had  no  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  the  spot,  call  these  scattered  rocks  Gum- 
rouk  Iskelessi.  the  Custom-House  Pier. 

Somewhere  in  the  vicinity,  in  different  ages,  were  reared 
three  structures  of  surpassing  splendor,  —  the  Temple  of 
the  Byzantines,  the  Serapeion,  and  the  imperial  Church 
of  the  Incorporeals.  The  first  grew  from  a  votive  altar,  at- 
tributed to  Jason,  and  its  memory  is  preserved  by  Strabo ; 
the  second  is  immortalized  by  Polybios ;  the  third,  re- 
erected  and  re-enriched  from  age  to  a^e  was  at  last  torn 
down  by  Mohammed  II,  to  be  built  into  his  fortress  of 
Roumeli  Hissar.  The  site  of  them  all  is  absolutely  lost. 
But  the  fishers'  perches,  the  daghlians,  lift  their  fantastic 
forms  above  the  water,  as  like  daghlians  have  risen  over 
the  same  wavy  spot  through  thousands  of  years.  Though 
the  storied  temples  on  the  shore  are  gone,  these  most  rus- 
tic fabrics  of  the  simplest  human  craft  remain  in  grotesque 
possession  of  the  bay. 

In  a  sequestered  vale  close  by,  north  of  the  Ottoman 
battery  of  Siralache,  is  the  Holy  Fountain  of  the  Virgin, 
the  Mauromoliotissa.  The  ground  in  the  vicinity  is 
thickly  strewn  with  ruins.  A  place  so  isolated  and  aus- 
tere appealed  to  the  ascetic  devotion  of  the  Middle  Ages  as 
a  most  appropriate  site  for  a  religious  retreat.  There  in 
the  eleventh  century,  the  Empress  Eudoxia,  wife  of  Con- 
stantine  XI,  and  afterwards  of  his  successor  Romanos  IV 
Diogenes,  founded  the  Monastery  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  the 
Mauromoliotissa.  In  1071,  her  second  husband,  heroic, 
but  ill-fated,  after  a  reign  that  is  a  romantic  tragedy,  lost 
his  crown  and  life.  The  only  refuge  open  to  the  de- 
throned Empress  was  this   monaster}".     There  her  head 


THE  BOSPHORUS  193 

was  shorn  of  the  long  silken  tresses  of  which,  in  brighter 
days,  she  had  been  so  proud,  and  was  wrapped  round  with 
the  coarse  black  veil  of  a  Basilian  nun.  There  she  passed 
the  last  twenty-six  years  of  her  checkered  life.  There 
she  composed  the  work  on  history  and  mythology  which 
seems  almost  fragrant  from  her  touch,  and  which  she  en- 
titled "  Ionia,  or  the  Bed  of  Violets."  The  monastery  was 
renowned  for  the  saintliness  of  its  inmates. 

"  She 
Dwelt  with  them,  till  in  time  their  Abbess  died. 
Then  she,  for  her  good  deeds  and  her  pure  life, 
And  for  the  power  of  ministration  in  her, 
And  likewise  for  the  high  rank  she  had  borne, 
Was  chosen  Abbess :  There,  an  Abbess  lived, 

and  there,  an  Abbess,  past 
To  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace." 

In  a  subsequent  century  it  was  abandoned  by  the  nuns 
and  appropriated  by  monks.  At  the  universal  overthrow 
of  1453,  two  monastic  cells  escaped  destruction,  and 
were  tenanted  by  successive  hermits  until  1713..  That 
year,  having  without  express  permission  dared  to  rebuild 
their  chapel,  which  had  fallen  down,  they  roused  the 
fierce  anger  of  the  fanatic  Grand  Vizir,  Damat  Ali  Pasha ; 
the  recluses  were  put  to  death,  and  the  cells  and  chapels 
demolished.  The  death,  full  of  suffering,  of  their  perse- 
cutor a  few  years  later  was  considered  by  the  Christians 
the  punishment  of  his  crime.  The  place  is  sacred  in  the 
affections  of  the  Greeks.  Annually,  on  the  fourth  of  Sep- 
tember, they  throng  the  deserted  vale  with  that  strange 
blending  of  religious  fervor  and  gayety  which  character- 
izes Eastern  piety.  The  chanted  prayers  of  the  priest,  and 
the  ringing  voices  of  children,  wake  alternate  echoes  in 

VOL.  I.  — 13 


194 


C  ONSTANTINOPLE 


the  spot,  silent  and  sepulchral  as  the  grave,  on  every  other 
day  throughout  the  year. 

Not  far  distant  is  the  Chrysorrhoas,  the  Golden  Stream, 
in  whose  bed  it  is  asserted  may  be  found  sands  of  gold. 
At  its  mouth  the  Thracians  reaped  a  rich,  but  infamous 


Bay  of  Buyouk  Limax 


harvest,  with  false  lights  alluring  incoming  vessels  to 
destruction.  The  inhospitable  Bay  of  Buyouk  Liman,  the 
Great  Harbor,  now  commanded  by  a  frowning  battery,  is 
the  ancient  anchorage  of  the  Ephesians,  —  vessels  from 
the  opulent  city  of  Diana  having  the  immemorial  custom 
of  mooring  here. 

The  whole  European  shore  above  Roumeli  Kavak  is  not 
so  much  the  domain  of  history  as  the  realm  of  the  two 


THE  BOSPHORUS  195 

brother  antiquaries,  —  the  student  of  geology  and  the 
lover  of  myths. 

It  consists  of  a  precipitous,  rocky  cliff,  destitute  of  ver- 
dure, but  of  a  greenish  tint,  and  only  at  rare  intervals 
intersected  by  a  ravine.  Millions  of  rounded  stones  and 
rocks  are  set  in  its  face,  apparently  clinging  by  some  in- 
visible attraction,  and  ready  to  fall.  As  one  passes  in  a 
boat  under  its  threatening  brow,  he  almost  hesitates  to 
approach  too  near  for  fear  of  the  waiting  avalanche.  Yet 
to  dislodge  the  smallest  pebble  is  not  easy,  so  firmly  is  it 
held  in  the  adamantine  grip  of  the  hardened  mass.  Dr. 
Clarke,  the  erudite  Professor  of  Mineralogy  at  Cambridge, 
England,  calls  the  whole  "  a  remarkable  aggregation  of 
enormous  pebble  stones,  of  heterogeneous  masses  of  min- 
eral substances,  polished  by  the  friction  of  the  waters, 
and  enclosed  in  a  coarse,  natural  cement.  .  .  .  These  sub- 
stances had  first  undergone  the  violent  action  of  fire,  and 
afterwards,  in  consequence  of  their  long  submersion  under 
water,  that  sort  of  friction  to  which  they  owe  their  pres- 
ent form." 

Tasalandjik  Bournou,  the  Cape  of  Rocks,  was  the  an- 
cient Aphrodision.  At  its  foot  lay  a  safe  and  sheltered 
harbor,  from  which,  up  winding,  narrow  paths  among  the 
frightful  cliffs,  Aphrodite  called  the  storm-tossed  mariners 
to  the  waiting  welcome  of  votaries  in  her  temple.  Near 
the  harbor  rose  the  Generous  Rock,  so  called  in  irony 
from  the  ships  to  which  it  had  given  destruction,  and 
from  the  human  beings  to  whom  it  had  given  death.  To 
them  who  had  scaled  the  height,  now  in  the  intoxication 
of  rest,  with  the  awful  Euxine  beyond,  and  spectral  death 
escaped  below, — 

"Most  weary  seemed  the  sea,  weary  the  oar, 
Weary  the  wandering  fields  of  barren  foam." 


196  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Pappas  Bourn ou.  the  Cape  of  the  Priest,  concealed 
Panion,  the  Grotto  of  Pan.  Over  it  lowered,  as  lowers 
to-day,  an  enormous  mass,  thousands  of  tons  in  weight, 
threatening  through  thousands  of  years  its  imminent  fall. 
Within  were  seats  in  the  natural  rock,  the  home  of  the 
nymphs  and  of  the  great  god  Pan.  The  seats  and  the 
overhanging  mass  are  there,  but  Pan  and  his  nymphs  are 
gone,  and  an  Ottoman  battery  holds  their  place. 

Somewhere  on  the  European  bank,  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Bosphorus,  were  the  court  of  the  blind  soothsayer, 
Phineus,  and  the  haunts  of  the  Harpies,  his  hideous  tor- 
mentors. Apollonios,  the  Rhodian,  narrates  the  legend 
with  most  minute  detail.  The  moment  a  morsel  of  food 
approached  the  lips  of  Phineus,  the  Harpies  rushed  from 
their  lurking-places  and  snatched  it  away,  meanwhile  de- 
filing the  ground  with  their  horrid  droppings  and  the  air 
with  a  loathsome  stench.  Their  victim  was  cursed  with 
immortality.  His  skin,  drawn  tightly  over  his  bones  by 
utter  emaciation,  prevented  their  falling  apart.  The  ora- 
cle had  foretold  that  the  Argonauts  were  to  release  him 
from  his  tormentors,  and  also  that  from  him  Jason  was  to 
obtain  such  counsels  as  would  enable  him  to  pass  the  hith- 
erto impassable  Cyanean  Rocks. 

These  two  islands,  placed  as  guardians  on  opposite  sides 
of  the  Bosphorus,  always  swung  together  and  crushed  be- 
tween them  whatever  endeavored  to  enter  the  Black  Sea. 
Then  they  instantly  swung  back  to  their  original  position. 
If  any  living  thing  once  got  through  in  safety,  they  were 
henceforth  to  be  immovable  forever.  On  their  arrival, 
two  of  the  Argonautic  heroes,  Zethes  and  Calais,  the 
winged  sons  of  Boreas,  put  the  Harpies  to  flight.  They 
were  about  to  destroy  the  foul  monsters,  but  Iris,  the 
messenger  of  Zeus,  descended  from  the  sky,  and  swore  by 


THE  BOSPHORUS  197 

the  river  Styx  that  they  should  never  come  back.  When 
Phineus  had  appeased  the  hunger  of  years,  he  gave  his 
benefactors  so  shrewd  advice  as  fully  repaid  his  debt.  He 
bade  Jason  advance  the  "  Argo  "  as  near  as  possible  to 
the  line  the  Rocks  would  traverse,  and  then  to  let  loose 
a  clove  from  the  vessel's  prow  ;  then  instantly,  as  they 
flew  apart  after  crushing  the  feeble  prey,  to  row  the 
"  Argo  "  boldly  forward,  and  thus  pass  before  the  Rocks 
had  time  to  dash  together  in  a  second  collision.  Jason 
implicitly  followed  the  counsel.  The  dove  was  an  effica- 
cious sacrifice  ;  but  so  rapid  was  the  movement  of  the 
Rocks  that,  though  the  "  Argo  "  itself  passed  unharmed, 
her  rudder  was  caught  in  the  angry  clash.  One  part  of  the 
seer's  advice  was  perhaps  the  most  valuable  of  all.  Said 
he,  "  Do  your  utmost  with  your  oars  and  sails  ;  count 
more  upon  your  arms  than  upon  the  prayers  which  you 
offer  the  gods."  The  conditions  of  the  oracle  had  been 
fulfilled.  Living  heroes  had  passed  unscathed  between 
the  jaws  of  danger ;  "  hence,"  as  Apollonios  says,  "  the 
islands  have  been  stable  ever  since." 

With  one  of  the  ancient  monuments  of  the  Bosphorus, 
Fable  and  Tradition  have  associated  the  name  of  Ovid, 
their  most  brilliant  master.  Though  the  banished  poet 
passed  through  the  strait  on  his  way  to  exile,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  he  ever  touched  its  shores.  Nevertheless,  a 
high,  circular  stone  pile,  long  since  abandoned  of  inhab- 
itant, prominent  on  the  height  of  Karibdjeh,  is  still  called 
Ovid's  Tower.  It  is  a  pleasing  coincidence  that,  some 
years  ago,  this  tower  was  pointed  out  to  that  prince  of 
modern  fabulists,  Hans  Christian  Andersen,  as  the  six 
months'  residence  of  Ovid,  prince  of  the  fabulists  of  Rome. 

Phanaraki,  the  Light-house,  is  the  last  settlement  on 
the   European   shore   of  the  Bosphorus.     Its  magnificent 


198  CONSTANTINOPLE 

beacon-light  is  visible  eighteen  miles  out  at  sea.  The 
inhabitants  of  the  village  are  mostly  Christians.  So 
strongly  is  their  influence  felt  that  even  the  ordinary 
language  of  the  Ottoman  residents  is  Greek.  By  a  cus- 
tom of  former  days,  still  frequently  observed,  every  per- 
son on  entering  the  Euxine  threw  into  the  water  a  piece 
of  money  as  propitiatory  offering.  Gradually  Christian 
observances  have  supplanted  pagan  usage,  and  the  little 
church  of  Phanaraki  is  constantly  sought  by  sailors  offer- 
ing their  thanksgivings  for  clangers  escaped,  and  their 
petitions  against  dangers  to  come. 

Kilia,  the  headquarters  of  the  Black  Sea  life-boat  ser- 
vice, is  not  situated  upon  the  Bosphorus,  but  five  miles 
west,  on  the  craggy  shore  of  the  Black  Sea.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  connected  with  the  Bosphorus  by  even  more  vital 
associations  than  any  mere  geographical  tie.  Hundreds 
of  human  beings,  shipwrecked  while  seeking  the  elusive 
mouth  of  the  strait,  have  been  torn  from  otherwise  cer- 
tain death  by  the  devotion  and  daring  of  the  members  of 
this  life-saving  service.  The  student  and  the  tourist, 
rapt  in  contemplation  of  classic  myths  and  shadowy  his- 
tory, often  forget  modern  heroism.  Our  Anglo-Saxon 
names  are  less  euphonious  than  the  vowel-fluted  names  of 
ancient  and  Southern  tongues.  Among  all  the  figures 
which  have  immortalized  the  Bosphorus,  there  are  none 
more  associate  with  humanity  and  honor  than  those  of 
Palmer  and  Summers,  the  captains  of  this  philanthropic 
company,  and  of  their  brave  associates. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  199 


THE  CYANEAN   ISLANDS 

These  two  islands,  set  on  opposite  sides  of  the  Bos- 
phorus  at  the  month  of  the  Black  Sea,  have  furnished 
themes  for  poetry  from  earliest  antiquity.  The  lively 
fancy  of  the  ancients  bestowed  upon  them  many  descrip- 
tive names.  To  Homer  they  were  at  UXayKral  HerpaL, 
Planktai  Petrai,  the  Wandering  Eocks ;  to  Euripides, 
at  £wop//,aSe?,  at  ^wSpo/xaSes,  or  at  XvfjLTrKrjydSes,  the 
Synormades,  Syndromades,  or  Symplegades,  the  Eocks 
which  rushed  or  dashed  together.  In  the  language  of 
the  common  people,  to  whom  their  leaden  hue  was  the 
most  apparent  feature,  they  were  at  Kvdvecu  N^crot,  Kya- 
neai  Nesoi,  the  Cyanean  or  Cerulean  Islands.  The  latter 
appellation  has  dethroned  the  rest. 

There  is  no  more  fascinating  excursion  in  the  world 
than  up  the  Bosphorus  to  the  one  still-existing  island.  It 
can  be  undertaken  only  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year, 
and  in  certain  rare  conditions  of  the  wind  and  sea.  The 
difficulty  of  its  accomplishment  enhances  the  charm  of  the 
exploit.  The  Black  Sea  is  usually  obdurate,  and  one  may 
wait  perhaps  for  months  before  a  suitable  day  arrives. 

With  a  feeling  of  delight,  which  time  and  distance  can- 
not blunt,  I  recall  my  last  visit,  in  1890,  to  the  famous 
rock.  It  was  necessary  to  start  when  the  first  roseate 
hues  were  tinting  the  sky.  The  boat  followed  closely 
the  Asiatic  shore,  where  the  current  was  less  strong,  and 
nature  seemed  more  dreamy.  The  radiant  unfolding  of 
the  landscape,  the  tasty  freshness  of  the  air  from  land 
and  water,  and  the  ceaseless  warbling  of  the  nightingale, 
from  apparently  every  tree  and  thicket,  filled  the  senses 
with  a  delirium  of  content.     One  might  question  whether 


2  (J  U  C  ONS  TA  NTLNOPLE 

Eden,  with  her  stream  of  paradise,  was  mure  fair  "  as 
Adam  saw  her  prime."  The  great  steamers,  never  else 
so  grand  as  when  looked  up  to  from  a  tiny  boat,  were  one 
after  another  descending  the  strait  in  the  early  morning 
after  their  night  on  the  Black  Sea.  The  whirring  swarms 
of  pelkovans,  with  their  shrill  cries  of  lost  souls,  or  of 
Turkish  women  who  have  died  childless,  almost  brushed 
the  boat  with  their  never-pausing  wings. 

It  was  one  of  those  most  infrequent  days  when,  for  a 
few  hours,  the  Black  Sea  appears  humanized  and  tamed. 
It  was  smooth  as  a  mirror's  face,  a  sea  of  glass,  a  crystal 
sea.  Not  a  breath  rippled  the  tiniest  wave  into  being. 
One  wished  to  remain  motionless  on  the  moveless  water. 
But  the  boatmen  rowed  across  its  mouth  with  the  utmost 
speed,  for  they  knew  that  the  impatient  wind  was  only 
waiting  to  rise  and  wake  the  billows  to  fury. 

The  Asiatic  Cyanean  Island  has  entirely  disintegrated 
and  disappeared.  The  waves  have  left  not  a  trace  of  its 
former  site.  The  same  process  of  disintegration  is  going 
on  with  its  European  twin,  and  in  some  future  age  the 
investigator  will  seek  it  in  vain.  During  the  last  three 
centuries  and  a  half  its  length  has  diminished  just  forty- 
seven  feet.  It  is  now  about  five  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
long  and  seventy  feet  wide ;  it  is  sixty-three  feet  high. 
It  lies  due  east  and  west,  its  western  extremity  being  only 
three  hundred  and  ninety-five  feet  distant  from  the  shore 
of  Phanaraki.  Between  the  mainland  and  the  island  ex- 
tends an  irregular  line  of  sunken  rocks,  as  if  once  a  sort 
of  natural  isthmus. 

Looked  at  from  the  south,  it  appears  to  consist  of  three 
distinct  masses.  The  eastern  mass  is  so  rent  by  fissures 
that  from  a  distance  one  can  gaze  through  them  to  the 
sea  beyond.     Nearer  approach  reveals  it  as  a  boulder  of 


THE  BOSPHORUS  201 

agglomerated  rock  resting  on  a  clayey  bottom ;  as  a  dark 
basaltic  pile,  composed  of  five  sundered  portions,  each  so 
gashed  and  seamed  that  the  whole  is  hardly  more  than  a 
rudely  rectangular  succession  of  disjointed  rocks.  Far- 
ther east,  in  a  ragged  line,  and  rising  slightly  above  the 
surface  of  the  water,  are  other  disconnected  rocks,  once 
part  of  the  island. 

The  only  manner  of  approach  is  from  the  south.  A 
natural  platform  a  few  yards  square  affords  a  landing- 
place.  Thence,  not  without  difficulty  and  clanger,  one 
may  climb  by  means  of  the  stones  conveniently  projecting 
in  the  volcanic  heap  to  the  top  of  the  central  or  larger 
mass.  Upon  it  grows  neither  tree  nor  shrub,  —  nothing 
but  red  moss  and  stunted  grass. 

At  its  most  elevated  point  stands  the  snowy  cylinder, 
commonly  called,  though  without  the  slightest  reason,  the 
Column  of  Pompey.  This  block  of  marble,  four  feet 
three  inches  high  and  three  feet  two  inches  in  diameter, 
in  relief  against  the  dark  background  of  the  hills,  is  visi- 
ble far  out  upon  the  sea,  and  gleams  like  a  white,  pure 
star.  Around  its  top  is  carved  a  garland  of  laurel  leaves, 
hanging  in  deep  festoons.  It  may  be  that  on  this  very 
pedestal  the  Romans  placed  the  Statue  of  Apollo,  of 
which  Dionysios  of  Byzantium  speaks.  An  inscription 
near  the  base,  in  letters  almost  two  inches  long,  distinctly 
legible,  though  defaced,  gives  it  a  humbler,  though  impe- 
rial destination. 

DIVO  .  CAESARI .  AVGVSTO. 

L  .  CLANNIDIUS. 

L  .  F  .  CLA.     PONTO. 

"To  the  divine  Cnesar  Augustus,  Lucius  Clannidius,  the 
son  of  Lucius,  of  the  Claudian  Family,  a  native  of  Pontus." 


202  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Speculation  queries  which  was  the  Caesar  Augustus  whose 
statue  was  attached  by  the  now  empty  sockets  to  the 
moss-reddened,  toppling  base ;  doubtless,  he  was  one  of 
the  earliest  of  that  exalted  line.  Perhaps  he  was  that 
autocratic  ruler  of  mankind  from  whom,  in  days  just  be- 
fore the  birth  of  Christ  in  Bethlehem,  went  out  the  decree 
"  that  all  the  world  should  be  taxed."  The  pedestal 
bears  no  other  inscription,  or  mark  of  an  inscription, 
whatever. 

In  1701,  long  after  the  Emperor's  effigy  had  fallen, 
Tournefort  saw  on  the  pedestal  a  white  column,  about 
twelve  feet  in  length,  and  crowned  by  a  Corinthian  capi- 
tal, which  the  Ottomans  had  placed  there  as  a  signal  to 
ships  at  sea.  He  laments,  in  his  enchanting  pages,  that 
it  was  impossible  for  his  boat  to  touch,  and  enable  him  to 
examine  it  near  at  hand.  Bishop  Pococke,  in  174o,  found 
the  shaft  prostrate  and  broken  into  several  fragments, 
and  the  capital  lying  beside  them.  When,  following  in 
the  steps  of  these  distinguished  travellers.  Professor  Clarke 
visited  the  Cyanean  Island  in  1800,  not  a  scrap  of  column 
or  capital  could  he  discover.  Thus,  from  generation  to 
generation,  the  fall,  the  mutilation,  and  the  disappear- 
ance of  many  another  monument  on  the  Bosphorus  may 
be  traced. 

The  soft  marble  of  the  pedestal  has  been  somewhat 
worn  away  on  the  northern  side  by  the  tempest  and  time. 
Its  hacked  and  battered  lower  portion  shows  the  marks  of 
intentional  violence.  It  is  a  fact  to  be  regretted  that  they 
were  inflicted  by  an  American  hand.  In  1801,  the  com- 
mander of  a  frigate  of  the  United  States  climbed  to  the 
top  of  the  island,  accompanied  by  some  under  officers,  and 
by  a  number  of  the  crew.  One  of  the  officers,  eager  for 
souvenirs,   ordered  a  sailor  to  hack  off  some  fragments 


THE  BOSPHORUS  203 

from  the  sculpture  round  the  base.  The  sailor  did  his  best 
with  a  blacksmith's  hammer,  and  with  lamentable  success. 
An  English  author  with  proper  indignation  condemns  the 
barbarity  of  the  act.  By  a  strange  coincidence,  that  very 
year  Lord  Elgin,  with  longer-continued  and  more  shame- 
ful vandalism,  was  despoiling  the  Parthenon  of  the  price- 
less treasures  which  time  and  the  Ottomans  had  spared. 

Standing  on  the  top  of  the  splintered  pedestal,  one  com- 
mands a  view  equally  beautiful,  grand,  and  suggestive. 
By  a  great,  semi-circular,  southward  sweep,  the  high, 
craggy  European  shores  form  the  entrance  to  the  Bos- 
phorus.  Their  peculiar  shape  accentuates  with  plausibil- 
ity the  theory  of  Choiseul  Gouffier.  He  believes  that 
here,  cycles  ago,  was  the  rim  of  an  immense  crater ;  that 
the  southern,  inner,  landward  half  is  what  we  see  before 
us,  and  that  the  northern,  outer  half  has  been  beaten 
down  by  the  resistless  action  of  the  Black  Sea.  The  tra- 
dition of  an  awful  convulsion  may  have  first  inspired  the 
horror  with  which  the  ancients  regarded  that  unknown 
sea.  Tossing  masses  of  moving  lava  may  have  fathered 
the  legend  of  the  ever-swinging  Symplegades.  "  The 
gods  are  hard  to  reconcile  ; "  but  the  sentence  which  Apol- 
lonios  puts  on  the  lips  of  Juno  in  her  talk  with  Thetis, 
"  Wandering  rocks  where  simmer  horrible  tempests  of 
fire,"  may  have  this  very  meaning.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
better  to  let  the  old  myths  survive,  and  not  mangle  them 
by  the  cold  dissecting-knife  of  attempted  and  fallible 
explanation. 

For  the  geologist,  who  would  find  a  wealth  of  investi- 
gation here,  I  will  transcribe  two  passages  from  the  learned 
works  of  M.  Tchihatcheff  and  Dr  Clarke.  Both  of  these 
scientific  men  studied  the  Cyanean  rock  with  profound 
attention. 


204  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Says  Professor  Clarke  :  *u  Perhaps  nowhere  else  has  ever 
been  seen  the  union  in  a  mineral  aggregation  of  the  sub- 
stances of  which  it  is  composed.  One  can  even  believe 
that  they  were  mixed  together  by  the  boiling  of  a  volcano, 
for  it  would  be  easy  to  recognize  in  the  same  mass  frag- 
ments of  differently  colored  lava  and  specimens  of  trap, 
of  basalt,  and  of  marble.  The  fissures  reveal  agate,  chal- 
cedony, and  quartz.  These  substances  are  seen  in  thin, 
arenaceous  veins,  not  half  an  inch  thick,  a  sort  of  crust 
deposited  subsequently  to  the  formation  of  the  stratum  of 
the  island.  Agate  is  found  in  a  vein  of  considerable  ex- 
tent at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  fissure,  not  over  an  inch  wide, 
bordered  by  a  green  substance  like  certain  lavas  of  ./Etna 
which  acidiferous  vapors  have  decomposed." 

The  researches  of  M.  Tchihatcheff  are  more  recent.  He 
says :  "  The  island  is  mainly  composed  of  volcanic  ash- 
beds,  often  regularly  stratified,  presented  as  breccia,  with 
particles  so  minute  that  the  rock  assumes  the  appearance 
of  a  compact,  heterogeneous  mass,  or  as  coarse  conglomer- 
ates, composed  of  voluminous  pieces  or  even  of  veritable 
blocks  of  black  doleritic  porphyry  most  frequently  colored 
red  by  a  thick  crust  of  oxide  of  iron.  All  these  blocks, 
generally  angular,  are  cemented  by  a  yellowish  paste,  and 
form,  as  does  also  the  breccia,  very  solid  rocks.  At  sev- 
eral points,  but  specially  in  the  lower  part  of  the  island, 
the  fine  grain  of  the  breccia  alternates  with  the  coarse 
conglomerate.  Finally,  these  different  ash-beds  are  trav- 
ersed  by  numerous  vertical  veins  of  green  earth,  composed 
of  hydrated  silicates  of  iron  and  magnesia.  These  veins, 
of  a  clear  green,  of  a  compact  and  ribbon-like  texture,  and 
of  conchoidal  fracture,  are  exceedingly  similar  to  the 
strips  of  green  sand  of  certain  cretaceous  rocks.  They 
are  distinct  in  a  marked  degree  from  the  black  masses 
which  they  traverse." 


THE  BOSPHORUS  205 

Each  visit  to  the  island,  long  awaited,  always  seems  too 
brief.  The  signal  of  departure  breaks  in  untimely  in  the 
shout  of  the  boatmen,  "  It  is  coming  !  It  is  coming  !  We 
must  be  off."  Already  the  broad  breast  of  the  sea  is  be- 
ginning to  heave  and  swell,  and  the  side  of  the  rock  is 
white  with  spray.  The  little  boat  must  reach  the  shelter 
of  the  Bosphorus  before  the  northern  wind  comes  down  in 
its  might.  With  torn  hands  and  slipping  feet,  one  clam- 
bers down  the  precipitous  descent.  Swiftly  he  is  rowed 
away,  always  embracing  the  receding  island  with  a  back- 
ward look,  always  to  cherish  the  memory  of  the  scene, 
'k  Where  the  wave  broke  foaming  o'er  the  blue  Symple- 
gades." 

THE   ASIATIC   SHORE   OF  THE   BOSPHORUS 

Crossing  to  the  Asiatic  shore,  let  us  follow  its  wind- 
ings southward  toward  Scutari  and  Stamboul. 

Along  its  northern  capes  and  bays,  traditions  of  Jason 
and  the  "  Argo  "  have  clung  tenaciously,  eclipsing  all  other 
memories.  Its  most  northern  point  the  Greeks  still  call 
Ankyraion,  the  Place  of  the  Anchor,  inasmuch  as  the 
Argonauts  there  abandoned  the  stone  anchor  which  had 
served  them  thus  far,  and  took  one  of  iron  instead.  The 
Ottoman  name,  Youn  Bournou,  the  Cape  of  Wool,  is 
descriptive  and  picturesque.  Some  stranger  of  lively 
fancy  must  have  first  employed  it  as  he  gazed  downward 
from  the  height  to  the  stretch  beneath, 

"Where  the  white  and  fleecy  waves 
Looked  soft  as  carded  wool." 

From  this  cliff  one  best  appreciates  the  majesty  and  solem- 
nity of  the  Black  Sea.     Its  ancient  grandeur  and  danger 


206  CONSTANTINOPLE 

are  minimized  in  this  day  of  mammoth  ships  and  steam- 
ers. But  even  now  let  one  behold  the  enormous  piles 
of  clond  rolling  and  hurled  toward  the  narrow  gorge  of 
the  strait ;  let  him  be  deafened  by  the  tempest,  crashing 
mountain  billows  against  the  crags,  —  then  he  will  himself 
experience  something  of  the  awe  it  once  inspired,  and,  from 
the  hue  of  its  inky  depths  beyond,  will  apprehend  why, 
above  all  other  seas,  it  deserves  its  epithet  of  "  Black." 

"  There  's  not  a  sea  .   .    . 
Turns  up  more  dangerous  breakers  than  the  Euxine." 

On  the  south  rises  the  round  rock  called  the  Tower  of 
Medea.  The  earthquake  has  rent  it  from  top  to  bottom. 
In  calm  weather  one  may  walk  to  it  from  the  shore,  but 
the  water  dashes  to  its  summit  in  a  storm. 

The  cliffs  around  the  bay  of  Kavakos  are  tunnelled, 
almost  to  the  water's  edge,  with  millions  of  nests  of  sea- 
birds.  One  of  the  two  immense  table-rocks  in  the  bay, 
though  submerged  in  rough  weather,  is  white  as  snow 
with  their  droppings,  accumulated  through  ages ;  the  other 
the  sailors  call  Kalograia,  the  Nun,  from  the  fancied  resem- 
blance of  its  form  to  a  monastic  veil.  In  it  is  the  spa- 
cious cave,  vaulted  like  a  cathedral,  forty  feet  in  height  at 
the  opening,  and  seventy  wide,  and  growing  vaster  from 
the  entrance ;  a  natural  curiosity,  whose  floor  perhaps  a 
dozen  European  feet  have  never  trodden,  but  which  is 
none  the  less  one  of  the  most  romantic  possessions  of 
the  Bosphorus. 

The  bay  is  bounded  on  the  south  by  the  Cape  of  Anadoli 
Phanar,  the  Asiatic  Lighthouse.  The  beacon,  two  hundred 
and  forty-nine  feet  above  the  water,  sends  its  blessed  crim- 
son light  to  a  distance  of  twenty-two  miles  over  the  sea.    At 


THE  BOSPHORUS  207 

its  foot  is  the  most  northern  of  the  Ottoman  batteries  on 
the  Asiatic  side. 

The  cliffs  advance  southwest  to  form  D jackal  Dereh 
Liman,  the  Harbor  of  the  Jackals'  Valley.  Here  a  long 
tooth-shaped,  jagged,  disjointed  rock  thrusts  itself  into 
the  narrowing  Bosphorus.  Had  not  Strabo  distinctly  told 
us  that  the  two  Symplegades  were  twenty  stadia  apart, 
this  disintegrating  pile  might  naturally  be  taken  as  the 
remains  of  the  long-lost  Asiatic  Cyanean  Rock.  The 
water  is  shallow,  and  reefs  and  boulders  line  the  shore. 

Poiraz  Bournou,  the  Cape  of  Poiraz,  in  this  corrupted 
form  preserves  the  name  of  the  wind-king,  Boreas.  Here, 
from  a  temple  on  a  most  fitting  site,  the  sea-god,  Poseidon, 
looked  out  on  his  broad  dominions.  It  is  possible  that  the 
Ottoman  stone  fortress  built  by  Baron  de  Tott  high  up  on 
the  beetling  crag  occupies  the  very  spot.  The  dizzy  for- 
tress of  Fil  Bournou,  the  Elephant's  Cape,  was  constructed 
by  the  same  famous  French  engineer,  who,  like  the  Canaan- 
ites  of  old,  took  delight  in  high  places. 

Fil  Bournou,  and  Kavak  Bournou,  the  next  headland  on 
the  south,  enclose  between  them  one  of  the  most  expanded 
bays  on  the  Bosphorus.  Rocks,  sometimes  burrowed  into 
natural  caves,  rise  precipitously  all  along  the  shore,  except 
at  infrequent  points  where  deep  ravines  force  their  way  to 
the  water.  So  far,  all  the  scenery  has  been  savage  and 
wild.  Weary  of  the  stern  and  frowning  landscape,  one 
reaches  with  relief  the  beautiful  valley  and  Ottoman  vil- 
lage of  Kedjili,  and  the  tiny  beach,  glittering  with  real 
sea-sand.  It  may  be  that  here  the  ancient  pilgrims  disem- 
barked on  their  way  to  the  sacred  Hieron.  More  likely, 
their  chelai,  or  landing-place,  was  at  the  foot  of  Monastir 
Deressi,  the  Valley  of  the  Monastery.  There  may  still  be 
seen   the   ruins   of  the   once   populous   Convent   of   Saint 


208 


CONSTANTIN  OPLE 


Catherine,  among  and  around  which  are  now  the  scattered 
houses  where,  in  time  of  foreign  epidemic,  suspected  trav- 
ellers undergo  quarantine. 

The  superb  promontory  of  Kavak  is  crowned  by  a  broad 
plateau  three  hundred  and  eighty-seven  feet  high.  Pagan 
piety,  which  devoted  to  sacred  purposes  whatever  was 
most  precious  in  nature   and  art,  set  apart  this  splendid 


MfBtfiQ 


The  Hierox 


hill  for  the  worship  of  its  deities.  This  was  the  ancient, 
far-famed,  world-revered  Hieron,  or  The  Holy-  On  its 
summits  and  slopes  were  reared  the  twelve  great  temples 
of  the  twelve  Olympian  gods,  and  the  Asiatic  pharos,  which 
gave  light  to  men. 

The  vastest  and  most  magnificent  was  that  consecrated 
to  the  omnipotent  Zeus  Ourios.  Jason  was  its  reputed 
founder.  Its  corner-stone  was  laid,  according  to  tradi- 
tion, as  the  thank-offering  of  the  Argonauts  for  their 
marvellous  success  in  Colchis,  and  for  their  safe  return. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  209 

Within  its  guardian  walls  stood  a  statue  of  Zeus,  made  of 
gold  and  ivory.  The  priceless  image  long  ago  became  the 
prey  of  some  forgotten  spoiler,  but  the  inscribed  slab, 
formerly  fastened  at  its  base,  may  be  seen  and  read  as 
follows,  among  the  antiquarian  treasures  of  the  British 
Museum :  "  The  sailor  who  invokes  Zeus  Ourios  that 
he  may  enjoy  a  prosperous  voyage,  either  toward  the 
Cyanean  Rocks,  or  on  the  iEgean  Sea,  itself  unsteady  and 
filled  with  innumerable  dangerous  shoals  scattered  here 
and  there,  can  have  a  prosperous  voyage  if  first  he  sacri- 
fices to  the  god  whose  statue  Philo  Antipater  has  set  up, 
both  because  of  gratitude  and  to  insure  favorable  augury 
to  sailors."  It  is  easier  to  utilize  quarried  marble  than  to 
quarry  new.  The  slab,  with  other  building  material,  was 
eventually  carted  to  Kadikeui.  There,  in  1676,  Sir  George 
Wheler  saw  it,  built  into  the  wall  of  a  private  house. 
The  temple  Constantine  is  supposed  to  have  converted 
into  a  church. 

In  the  temple  of  Poseidon,  Pausanias,  after  the  battle  of 
Plataea,  engraved  on  a  brazen  bowl  the  following  inscrip- 
tion, which  by  its  egotism  and  lordly  air  angered  the 
democratic  Greeks  :  "  Pausanias,  the  ruler  of  broad  Greece, 
Lacedemonian  in  race,  the  son  of  Cleombrotos,  of  the 
ancient  line  of  Hercules,  has  consecrated  at  the  Euxine 
Sea  to  the  Lord  Poseidon  a  memorial  of  valor." 

Herodotus  informs  us  that  Darius  sailed  from  his  bridge 
to  the  Cyanean  Islands,  and  then,  "  seated  at  the  Hieron, 
gazed  upon  the  Pontus."  Whether  Darius  visited  this 
Hieron,  or  the  one  on  the  European  side,  we  cannot  tell. 

The  Hieron  was  a  place  whither  pilgrims  pressed  as  to 
Mecca  or  Lourdes.  It  was  sufficiently  remote  to  render 
pilgrimage  meritorious,  and  not  so  inaccessible  as  to  make 
the  pious  journey  dangerous  or  hard.     The  flocking  devo- 


u 


210  CONSTANTINOPLE 

tees  brought  each  his  filial  offering,  and  the  impressive- 
ness  of  the  twelve  temples  constantly  increased  with 
their  accumulating  wealth.  Every  accessory  combined 
with  the  priest  at  the  altar  to  intensify  the  hold  of  a 
sensuous  and  idealistic  creed.  The  gorgeous  site,  the 
resplendent  shrines,  the  ravishing  outlook  upon  the  Bos- 
phorus  and  the  sea,  the  entire  mystic  influence  of  the 
spot,  with  ascending  incense  and  sacrificial  smoke,  con- 
tributed to  foster  .superstition  and  to  deepen  faith.  It 
was  easy  to  imagine  fleeting  glimpses  of  oreads  and 
dryads  in  the  groves,  and  of  naiads  sporting  with  the 
dolphins  in  the  water.  The  sacred  birds  fluttered  and 
soared  above  the  height,  or  hooted  and  warbled  in  the 
sacred  woods.  Not  even  at  Olympus  or  Delphi  was  the 
classic  worship  more  strongly  intrenched.  This  was  a 
Gibraltar  of  the  gods. 

No  spot  on  earth  is  now  more  eloquent  testimony  of 
their  abandonment  and  decay.  Not  even  a  fragment  of 
broken  marble,  or  a  foundation-stone  still  in  place,  evokes 
a  query  as  to  their  vanished  fanes. 

'•  From  the  gloaming  of  the  oakwood, 
0  ye  Dryads,  could  ye  flee  ? 
At  the  rushing  thunderstroke  would 
No  soh  tremble  through  the  tree  ? 
Not  a  word  the  Dryads  say, 
Though  the  forests  wave  for  aye, 
For  Pan  is  dead. 

"Have  ye  left  the  mountain  places, 
Oreads  wild,  for  other  tryst  ? 
Shall  we  sec  no  sudden  faces 

Strike  a  glory  through  the  mist  ? 
Not  a  sound  the  silence  thrills 
Of  the  everlasting  hills. 

Pan,  Fan  is  dead. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  211 

"  0  twelve  gods  of  Plato's  vision, 
Crowned  to  starry  wanderings, 
With  your  chariots  in  procession, 
And  your  silver  clash  of  wings 
Very  pale  ye  seem  to  rise, 
Ghosts  of  Grecian  deities, 

Now  Pan  is  dead." 

Though  consecrated  and  theoretically  neutral  ground, 
the  territory  of  Hieron  was  the  property  of  Chalkedon. 
From  that  city  Byzantium  purchased  at  a  great  price  the 
right  to  place  a  small  fortress  on  the  hill.  It  was  a 
watch-tower  rather  than  a  stronghold.  During  the  war 
with  Rhodes,  in  the  third  century  before  Christ,  it  was 
taken  by  Prusias  I,  King  of  Bithynia,  but  was  restored  on 
conclusion  of  peace.  After  the  foundation  of  Constanti- 
nople and  the  fall  of  paganism,  it  was  made  the  strongest 
fortress  on  the  Bosphorus  by  the  Byzantine  emperors. 
Together  with  the  castle  on  the  opposite  European  coast, 
it  closed  the  strait  against  marine  incursion.  In  the  dis- 
tracted Middle  Ages  it  was  more  than  once  besieged.  Its 
most  formidable  and  most  illustrious  assailant  was  the 
Caliph  Haroun  al  Rashid.  In  the  fourteenth  century  it 
and  the  opposite  European  fortress  were  captured  by  the 
Genoese.  The  arms  of  Genoa  are  still  seen  emblazoned 
on  its  walls,  and  it  is  commonly  called  to  this  day  the 
Genoese  Castle.  Towards  the  end  of  the  same  century  it 
submitted  to  Sultan  Bayezid  I,  the  Thunderbolt,  and  has 
remained  in  the  undisturbed  possession  of  the  Ottomans 
ever  since.  Now  it  is  an  immense,  ivy-mantled,  ruined 
pile,  —  a  place  for  infrequent  picnics,  and  for  more  infre- 
quent antiquaries.  Over  the  main  entrance,  a  cross,  the 
symbol  of  Christianity,  surmounts  a  crescent,  the  symbol 
of  Byzantium,  with  the  device,  XC  3>C  nC,  Christ  the 


212  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Light  to  All.  or  Xptcrro?  4>ai<j  Ilacrt.  Carved  crosses  are 
seen  on  many  prominent  places.  Beneath  one  cross  is  the 
inscription,  IXK  N,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  Conqueror, 
or  'I^crou?  X/3ktt6<?  Kupiog  N1K777179.  This  inscription  of 
Christian  confidence  does  not  disturb  the  serenity  of  the 
Mussulman  soldiers,  whose  batteries  are  planted  on  almost 
every  spur  of  the  adjacent  hills,  and  whose  earthwork  of 
Joros  Kaleh.  with  its  forty-four  burnished  cannon,  projects 
from  the  foot  of  Hieron  into  the  Bosphorus.  Close  to  the 
latter  earthwork  is  the  Station,  where  all  vessels  arriv- 
ing or  departing  must  obtain  permission  from  the  Otto- 
man authorities  to  pass. 

In  this  part  of  the  strait  were  fought  several  desperate 
sea-fights  between  the  Venetians  and  the  Genoese. 

The  village  of  Anadoli  Kavak  is  the  farthest  north  on 
the  Asiatic  side  of  those  served  by  the  local  steamers.  No 
more  distinctively  Oriental  settlement  can  be  conceived. 
It  affords  the  three  earthly  delights  in  which  a  Mussul- 
man most  rejoices,  —  running  water,  spreading  trees,  and 
rest  (rahat).  The  stranger,  as  he  wanders  in  its  listless 
shade,  might  almost  wonder  whether  an  anxiety  or  an 
ambition  has  ever  entered  here.  On  the  southern  side  of 
its  bay  the  cliff  descends  so  precipitously  that  the  quarries 
in  its  side  seem  fastened  there  like  nests. 

Then  one  reaches  Madjar  Bournou,  the  Cape  of  the 
Hungarians.  On  its  outer  verge  Justinian,  who  did  all 
things  grandly,  dedicated  a  church  of  vast  proportions  to 
Saint  Pantelemon,  the  patron  of  physicians.  Some  of  its 
columns  a  thousand  years  after  were  placed  by  Soulei- 
man  I  in  his  magnificent  mosque.  The  Ottomans  brushed 
aside  the  last  vestiges  of  the  church  when  they  constructed 
on  its  site  the  most  extensive  and  most  heavily  armed 
earthwork  on  the  Bosphorus. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  213 

This  cape  is  but  the  seaward  prolongation  of  Giant's 
Mountain,  which  rises  behind  it.  No  other  natural  feat- 
ure of  the  strait  is  so  self-assertive  and  so  commanding. 
It  is  the  unrivalled  monarch  of  the  hills  and  cliffs  between 
Stamboul  and  the  Black  Sea.  The  thick  tuft  of  trees  on 
its  summit,  surrounding  a  tekieh  and  mosque  of  the  Ka- 
diri  Dervishes,  is  prominent  for  many  miles  around.  From 
the  mass  of  verdure  peers  the  gleaming,  arrowy  minaret, 
its  pointed  tip  piercing  the  clouds  at  a  height  of  six  hun- 
dred and  sixty  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  These 
dervishes  are  kindly  and  liberal-minded.  One  may  mount 
the  circular  ascent  inside  the  minaret,  just  as  Byron  did, 
and,  emerging  on  the  gallery  of  the  muezzin,  drink  in  the 
very  view  on  the  very  spot  where  the  author  of  "  Childe 
Harold "  was  inspired  with  some  of  his  deathless  lines. 
In  that  masterpiece  of  a  poet's  wanderings,  when  he  fol- 
lowed on  till  he  looked  "  where  the  dark  Euxine  rolled 
upon  the  blue  Symplegades,"  this  was  the  spot  most  dis- 
tant from  home  pressed  by  his  pilgrim  feet. 

"  'T  is  a  grand  sight  from  off  the  Giant's  grave 
To  watch  the  progress  of  those  rolling  seas 
Between  the  Bosphorus,  as  they  lash  and  lave 
Europe  and  Asia." 

The  hill  is  called,  by  the  Ottomans,  Yousha  Dagh,  or 
Mountain  of  Joshua.  It  is  their  tradition  that,  after  the 
Hebrew  hero  had  conquered  the  Promised  Land,  God 
granted  him  as  his  earthly  reward  the  privilege  of  living, 
dying,  and  being  buried  here.  Behind  the  mosque  they 
show  a  grave  of  most  peculiar  form,  over  forty  feet  in 
length,  and  hardly  more  than  a  tenth  as  wide,  which  they 
revere  as  that  of  the  son  of  Nun. 

Among  the  ancient  Greeks  the  name  of  the  mountain 


214  CONSTANTINOPLE 

was  Kline  ton  Herakleous,  or  the  Bed  of  Hercules,  and 
their  modern  descendants  call  it  the  Mneimeion,  or  Mon- 
ument of  the  Greek.  Numerous  legends  are  related  of  its 
origin  and  history.  There  is  one  frequently  repeated  by 
the  common  people.  They  say  that  the  locality  was  an- 
ciently a  plain.  A  great  warrior  died,  and  was  buried 
here.  His  surviving  friends  each  threw  a  handful  of  earth 
over  his  remains.  So  man}'  and  so  mighty-handed  were 
the  mourners  that  the  funeral  pile  became  at  last  this 
mountain.  Thus  constantly  on  the  Bosphorus  -does  one 
listen  to  tales,  vulgarized  on  lips  ignorant  of  mythology 
and  history,  but  originating  thousands  of  years  before  in 
some  classic  myth  or  story.  This  tradition  is  old  as  the 
"  Ara:o,"  and  uoes  back  to  Amvkos,  King  of  the  Bebrvkes, 
accidentally  slain  in  a  boxing-match  by  Pollux,  and  in- 
terred on  this  hill  by  Jason  and  his  companions. 

Another  legend  describes  the  frequent  visits  of  the 
father  to  the  grave,  and  his  lamentations  over  his  son. 
So  gigantic  were  his  proportions  that,  seated  on  the  sum- 
mit, he  splashed  his  feet  in  the  Bosphorus,  and  sank 
passing  vessels  by  a  breath. 

The  coast  south  of  Giant's  Mountain  withdraws  inland 
to  Selvi  Bournou,  the  Cape  of  the  Cypress,  and  forms  the 
ill-omened  Oumour  Bay.  A  narrow  belt  of  water,  ten 
fathoms  deep,  follows  the  windings  of  the  shore.  Between 
it  and  the  main  channel  extend  the  broad  and  dreaded 
shoals  called  Englishman's  Banks.  They  rise  to  within 
a  few  feet  of  the  surface,  and  many  a  ship  and  sailor  has 
rushed  on  them  to  destruction.  Buoys  and  a  lighthouse 
now  give  warning  of  danger. 

An  obelisk  at  Selvi  Bournou  marks  the  spot  where 
the  tent  of  the  Russian  general  Mouravieff  was  pitched  in 
1833.     Those   were   dark  days  for  the  Ottoman  Empire, 


THE  BOSPHORUS  215 

and  for  its  intrepid  Sultan,  Mahmoud  II.  His  ambitious 
vassal,  Mehemet  Ali  Pasha,  Viceroy  of  Egypt,  had  risen 
in  rebellion,  and  the  Egyptian  armies,  flushed  with  the 
victories  of  Acre,  Damascus,  Horns,  and  Beilan,  had  in- 
vaded Asia  Minor.  Then,  at  the  desperate  battle  of 
Konieh,  thirty  thousand  Ottomans  had  been  left  upon  the 
field,  and  the  Ottoman  commander-in-chief  had  been  taken 
prisoner.  The  Egyptian  advanced  guard  had  entered 
Brousa  almost  in  sight  of  Constantinople,  and  Smyrna 
had  received  an  Egyptian  governor. 

At  no  other  time  in  its  history  of  six  hundred  years  has 
the  extinction  of  the  Ottoman  power  appeared  so  probable 
and  imminent.  Turkey  was  practically  abandoned  by 
her  Western  allies,  who  Avere  indifferent  or  sided  with 
Mehemet  Ali. 

The  Czar  Nicolas,  however,  considered  that  the  over- 
throw of  a  sovereign  by  a  vassal  was  a  menace  to  all 
thrones.  Hence  he  manifested  for  the  Sultan  an  efficient 
and  apparently  disinterested  sympathy.  On  February  20, 
1833,  the  Russian  fleet  arrived  off  Selvi  Bournou  with 
fifteen  thousand  men,  who,  disembarking,  encamped  in 
the  adjacent  plain  of  Sultanieh,  or  the  Sultan's  Valley. 
The  appearance  of  the  Russians  intimidated  Mehemet 
Ali,  and  roused  the  Western  diplomats  from  their 
apathy.  The  rebel  vassal  withdrew  his  forces  beyond 
the  Taurus  Mountains,  and  the  imperilled  Empire  was 
saved. 

The  obelisk  bears  the  following  inscription  in  Russian : 
"  This  plain  for  a  brief  season  gave  hospitality  to  the 
Russian  army.  May  this  monumental  stone  preserve  the 
remembrance.  May  the  alliance  of  the  two  courts  be 
equally  firm  and  solid.  May  this  event  be  celebrated 
forever  in  the  annals  of  friendship/' 


216  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  Russian  troops  remained  at  Sultanieh  during  the 
five  delicious  months  of  spring  and  early  summer.  In  the 
recollections  of  those  northern  veterans,  their  stay  must 
have  lingered  as  a  delightful,  life-long  memory.  Nowhere 
could  they  have  ever  found  a  more  salubrious  and  conve- 
nient camp.  The  valley  is  shut  in  on  three  sides  by  hills. 
Cool,  crystal  streams  provide  abundant  water.  Forests 
clothe  the  neighboring  hillsides,  and  giant  trees  cast  their 
shade  here  and  there  in  the  plain.  On  the  east  extends 
the  natural  parade-ground,  where  seventy  thousand  men 
may  manoeuvre.  On  the  south,  the  plain  wheels  by  a 
sharp  turn  westward  to  the  Bosphorus,  which  it  touches 
at  Hounkiar  Iskelessi,  the  Landing-place  of  the  Master 
of  Men. 

One  disembarking  at  the  famous  pier  wanders  inland, 
and  the  restful  beauty  grows  upon  him  as  he  advances. 
Such  avenues  of  imperial  sycamores  are  surpassed  nowhere 
in  the  world.  At  last,  on  the  north  and  left,  there  lies 
revealed  the  calm  and  spacious  magnificence  of  Sultanieh, 
as  refreshing  and  as  verdant  as  when,  four  centuries 
before  Christ,  Xenophon  and  his  Ten  Thousand  pressed 
its  soft  turf  with  their  weary  feet. 

Its  ancient  name  was  Aule  tou  Amykou,  the  Hall  of 
Amykos,  the  Bebrycian  king,  who  was  a  suspicious  and 
perhaps  hostile  host  of  the  Argonauts.  This  was  a  favor- 
ite resort  of  the  Byzantine  emperors,  who  in  its  seques- 
tered glades  sought  a  brief  relaxation  from  their  formal 
state.  In  one  of  its  rustic  summer-houses,  in  1185,  the 
worn-out  debauchee  Andronikos  I  Komnenos  received,  in 
the  early  morning,  the  tidings  of  his  deposition,  and  of 
the  coronation  of  his  foe,  Isaac  Angelos.  Hence  the 
dethroned  sovereign,  seated  backward  and  bound  upon  an 
ass,  was  paraded,  a  shorn  and  despised  Samson,  along  the 


THE  BOSPHORUS  217 

shores  of  the  Bosphoras  to  his  merited  and  yet  heroic 
death  in  the  Hippodrome.  Here,  in  1147,  the  French 
king  Louis  VII,  who  afterwards  wrought  such  woe  to 
England  and  to  Henry  II,  encamped  with  his  army  of 
Crusaders,  "the  martial  flower  of  France. " 

After  the  Ottoman  Conquest,  it  became  a  favorite  hunt- 
ing-ground of  the  sultans.  Sultan  after  sultan  erected 
palace  and  kiosk,  always  overloaded  with  titles  significant 
of  felicity,  eternity,  or  omnipotence.  From  long  custom, 
whenever  a  sultan  withdrew  hither  from  Stamboul,  the 
French  ambassador  at  once  brought  him  the  rarest  fruits 
and  flowers.  Here,  in  1805,  Sultan  Selim  III,  groping 
after  manufactures  and  reform,  established  a  paper- 
factory  which  he  soon  converted  into  a  woollen-mill,  and 
shortly  afterwards  abandoned. 

Here,  in  1833,  on  the  eighth  of  June,  the  treaty  of 
Hounkiar  Iskelessi  was  signed  between  the  Russian  and 
Ottoman  empires.  This  closed  the  Dardanelles  in  case  of 
war  to  the  enemies  of  Russia,  and  ratified  the  most  inti- 
mate alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  between  the  Sultan 
and  the  Czar.  It  was  to  be  binding  for  eight  years.  The 
treaty  excited  the  most  violent  and  bitter  resentment 
among  the  Western  Powers.  For  a  time  a  universal 
European  war  seemed  inevitable. 

Here,  in  1869,  Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz,  in  a  fairy-like 
palace  reared  for  the  occasion,  and  with  the  grandees 
of  his  empire  in  his  suite,  gave  an  imposing  reception 
to  the  Empress  Eugenie.  In  the  plain  where  Xenophon 
and  the  Russians  had  encamped,  sixty  thousand  Ottoman 
soldiers,  the  picked  men  of  the  army,  —  infantry,  cavalry, 
and  artillery,  —  defiled  in  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance 
of  war  before  the  French  Empress.  At  night,  both  shores 
of  the  Bosphorus,  through  their  entire  length,  were  lit 


218  CONSTANTINOPLE 

with  the  most  magnificent  illumination  which  they  have 
probably  ever  seen.  The  Ottoman  Sultan  and  the  wife 
of  Napoleon  III  were  then  at  the  zenith  of  their  power. 
No  prophet  could  have  foretold  the  fast-approaching 
tragedies  of  Tcheragan  and  Sedan. 

South  of  Hounkiar  Iskelessi,  raised  high  on  successive 
terraces,  arrogant  in  its  prominence,  which  makes  it  visible 
for  many  miles,  is  the  so-called  Egyptian  or  Chocolate 
Palace.  Ismail  Pasha,  Viceroy  of  Egypt,  presented  it  to 
Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz.  Judged  by  its  cost,  it  was  a  gift 
worthy  of  a  king.  In  its  erection  and  adornment  over 
ten  million  francs  had  been  expended.  Its  grounds  and 
gardens  monopolize  all  the  territory  of  the  point.  This 
was  the  residence  of  the  Empress  during  a  portion  of  her 
stay  ;  likewise,  a  few  weeks  later,  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Emperor,  Joseph  II,  who  also  came  on  a  visit  to  the 
Sultan. 

The  Asiatic  shore,  even  more  sinuous  than  that  of 
Europe,  recedes  southeast,  forming  the  wide,  deep  bay  of 
Beykos,  the  Walnut-Tree.  The  amphitheatrical  valley, 
fertile  and  luxuriant,  green  with  trees  and  bright  with 
flowers,  merits  its  ancient  name  of  the  Grove  of  the 
Nymphs.  Here  grew  the  "  insensate  laurel  "  which,  when 
placed  as  a  garland  on  the  brow  of  any  banqueter,  mad- 
dened his  brain.  Here  Amykos  fought  his  pugilistic  duel 
with  Pollux,  the  son  of  Zeus.  The  popular  resort  of  the 
villagers  is  a  large  marble  cistern,  surrounded  by  a  mar- 
ble peristyle,  and  overhung  with  plane-trees.  A  crowd  of 
indolent,  almost  lifeless,  loiterers  linger  around  the  spot, 
and  listen  all  day  long  to  the  ripple  of  the  water.  They 
find  not  only  fascination,  but  even  intoxication,  in  the 
soothing  sound.  In  the  bay  rendezvoused  the  Anglo- 
Franco-Ottoman  fleet  hi  1854,  and  thence  it  sailed  to  the 


THE  BOSPHORUS  219 

Crimean  War.  In  the  high-perched  claghlians,  watchers 
are  always  peering  for  the  swordfish,  which  have  here 
their  best-loved  haunt. 

To  the  southern  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Beykos,  as  far  as 
the  headland  of  Kandlidja  Bournou,  less  legendary  and 
natural  charm  attaches  than  to  any  other  portion  of  the 
Bosphorus.  The  villages  that  line  it  are  scantily  popu- 
lated and  humble  hamlets,  seldom  visited  by  the  great 
world,  almost  never  the  scene  of  any  great  event.  Yet 
each  possesses  some  special  feature  of  its  own,  some 
beauty  of  situation  or  environment,  some  grove  or  Oriental 
garden,  which  would  make  it  remarked  and  attractive 
elsewhere,  though  so  inferior  here. 

Soulehnan  I  joined  a  tiny  island  near  the  shore  to  the 
mainland,  built  on  it  a  circular  and  domed  kiosk,  and 
there  passed  many  an  hour  with  his  imperious  consort, 
Roxelana.  A  kiosk,  a  masterpiece  pf  Persian  art,  took 
its  place.  This  was  the  offering  of  the  victorious  Grand 
Vizir,  Osman  Pasha,  to  Mourad  III,  and  its  materials 
were  brought  from  Persia  on  the  backs  of  horses,  camels, 
and  men.  Its  name  of  Sultanieh  superseded  its  earlier 
name  of  Cyclamen,  due  to  the  first  flower  of  spring  which 
studded  the  fields. 

Indjir  Keui,  the  classic  Sykai,  is  famous  for  the  excel- 
lence of  its  figs,  and  to  that  distinction  owes  both  its 
ancient  and  modern  name.  Here  was  the  palace  of  the 
corpulent  Achmet  Pasha,  Grand  Vizir  of  Sultan  Ibrahim, 
but  better  known  to  Ottoman  history  as  Hezarpareh,  or 
the  Man  who  was  torn  to  a  thousand  pieces.  Degraded 
from  his  high  office  and  bowstrung,  his  body  was  thrown 
into  the  Hippodrome,  and  left  there  over  night.  In  the 
morning  a  janissary,  passing  by,  exclaimed  that  the  body 
of  a  man  so  fat  must  be  a  certain  cure  for  rheumatism. 


220  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  common  people,  in  a  mixed  frenzy  of  brutal  sport 
and  credulity,  chopped  the  remains  of  the  dead  vizir  into 
innumerable  tiny  portions,  and  sold  them  at  ten  paras  the 
piece.  The  inhabitants  of  the  village,  having  been  con- 
demned for  evil  practices  in  1762,  received  a  novel  pun- 
ishment. All  their  coffee-houses  were  closed  for  several 
years ;  the  opening  of  new  ones  was  forbidden,  and  the 
former  keepers  sent  into  exile. 

Pasha  Baghtcheh,  the  Pasha's  Garden,  is  inhabited  only 
by  Greeks.  It  consists  of  a  group  of  the  plainest,  smallest 
houses,  all  clustering  about  the  Church  of  Saint  Constan- 
tine.  However  small  the  population,  and  however  great 
the  poverty,  of  a  Greek  community,  its  first  consideration 
always  is  to  provide  a  church,  and  its  second,  a  school. 

Tchiboukli,  the  Place  of  the  Rod  or  Branch,  is  entirely 
Ottoman.  It  is  a  pretty  place,  the  perfection  of  simple 
contentment  and  rest.  Its  name  is  derived  from  a  Turk- 
ish tradition,  which  also  sums  up  all  its  local  pride.  Sul- 
tan Bayezid  II  had  removed  his  turbulent  son,  afterwards 
Selim  I,  from  his  government  of  Trebizond,  and  brought 
him  hither.  One  day,  enraged  at  his  insolence,  he  broke 
a  branch  from  a  tree  and  struck  him  with  it  eight  times. 
The  number  of  blows  was  considered  the  intimation  of 
the  number  of  years  during  which  Selim  was  to  reign,  — 
a  prophecy  afterwards  fulfilled.  The  branch  was  thrust 
into  the  ground,  and  grew  "like  the  palm-trees  of  Me- 
dina," and  shielded  the  village  with  its  shade.  A  few 
years  ago  it  was  cut  down  for  souvenirs,  which  were  sold 
at  fabulous  prices. 

Here,  early  in  the  fifth  century,  the  monk  Alexander 
founded  a  Monastery  of  the  Akoimetai,  or  Sleepless.  It 
seldom  contained  less  than  three  hundred  monks.  The 
brethren  were  divided  into  sections,  which  relieved  one 


THE  BOSPHORUS  221 

another  like  the  watch  on  board  ship.  Each  section  took 
up  the  service  at  the  point  which  the  preceding  section 
had  reached.  Thus,  until  a  little  before  the  Ottoman 
Conquest,  the  voice  of  thanksgiving  and  prayer  ascended 
unceasingly  from  it  night  and  day.  Its  story  is  that  of 
an  uninterrupted  prayer-meeting,  or  a  continuous  worship, 
which  lasted  more  than  thirty  generations,  or  almost  a 
thousand  years.  Remains  still  indicate  the  site  of  the 
monastery,  but  it  is  silent  now. 

The  sandy  shore  for  a  distance  is  unoccupied  by  houses. 
The  uninhabited  strip  is  utilized  by  thirteen  yellow  store- 
houses, or  magazines,  in  an  unpoetic  row.  In  the  days 
when  American  petroleum  monopolized  the  Eastern  mar- 
ket, these  storehouses  were  erected  by  the  government 
for  its  reception  at  a  safe  distance  from  dwellings.  Now, 
however,  American  petroleum  is  almost  driven  from  the 
field,  and  the  magazines  are  always  full  of  the  Russian 
article  from  Bakou. 

Kanlidja  Bournou,  the  Blood-Red  Cape,  was  so  called 
from  the  former  color  of  its  houses  as  they  overhung  the 
water.  Many  of  these  dwellings,  once  elegant  and  luxu- 
rious, are  voiceful  to  every  passer-by  with  their  revelation 
of  poverty  and  decay.  There  is  something  pathetic  in 
the  broken  lattices  of  the  windows,  and  in  the  weeds 
springing  in  the  tessellated  pavement  of  the  gardens.  The 
exquisite  Bay  of  Kafess,  despite  its  few  prosperous  man- 
sions and  kiosks,  tells  the  same  story  of  impoverishment 
and  decline.  The  hillsides  are  none  the  less  delightful 
with  ivied  terraces  and  leafy  avenues  of  ancient  trees. 
The  touch  of  nature  and  time  imparts  an  indescribable 
aesthetic  charm  to  the  magnificence  left  by  departed  days. 
One  realizes  that,  when  these  hills  of  Kanlidja  and  Kafess 
were    crowded    with    Ottoman    palaces,    and    shone   with 


222  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Oriental  display,  they  were  even  less  beautiful  than 
now. 

To  a  large  white  submarine  rock,  formerly  near  the 
point,  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Chalkedon  attributed  the 
ever-increasing  prosperity  of  Byzantium,  and  their  own 
constant  inferiority.  Those  were  days  when  the  fisheries 
of  the  Bosphorus  afforded  a  main  source  of  revenue.  The 
people  of  Chalkedon  asserted  that  the  fish,  swarming 
southward  from  the  Euxine,  were  always  frightened  by 
this  glaring  rock,  and  swam  away  from  it  to  the  Euro- 
pean side,  where  were  the  fishing-grounds  of  the  Byzan- 
tines. Even  when  the  silvery  shoals  returned  northward 
in  the  spring,  their  unforgotten  terror  was  believed  to 
drive  them  away  from  Chalkedon,  and  westward  toward 
Byzantium. 

The  Ottoman  village  of  Anadoli  Hissar,  the  Asiatic 
Castle,  is  directly  opposite  Roumeli  Hissar,  and  derives 
its  name  from  the  fortress  built  by  Bayezicl  I  in  1393. 
The  erection  of  this  fortress  was  the  first  permanent  men- 
ace planted  on  the  Bosphorus  by  the  Ottomans  against 
the  Byzantine  Empire.  Sixty  years  the  garrison  of  that 
stronghold  watched  and  waited.  When  the  fulness  of 
time  at  last  came  with  Mohammed  II,  great-grandson  of 
Bayezid,  it,  no  less  than  the  vaster  and  more  towering 
structure  on  the  European  side,  contributed  to  the  closing 
of  the  strait,  and  to  the  fall  of  Constantinople.  The 
Ottomans  call  it  Guzeldji,  or  the  Beautiful.  High,  cren- 
ellated walls  connect  its  main  square  tower  with  four 
others,  which  are  circular.  Now  it  is  gaunt  in  its  spec- 
tral whiteness.  Formerly  the  whole  upper  portion  of 
the  walls  was  covered  with  houses,  which  protruded  be- 
yond the  parapets  on  either  side,  and,  though  solidly 
attached,  seemed  waiting  for  a  blast  to  sweep  them  away. 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


223 


Year  after  year  they  defied  the  wind,  but  in  1879,  in  a 
single  day,  they  were  all  destroyed  by  fire. 

The  Bay  of  Gueuk  Sou,  the  Sweet  or  Celestial  Water, 
receives  the  contributions  of  the  two  most  important  riv- 
ers which  empty  into  the  Bosphorns.  These  are  the 
ancient  Arete  and  the  ancient  Azarion,  now  dubbed  the 


Castle  of  Anadoli  Hissar 


Bnyouk,  or  Great,  and  the  Kutchouk,  or  Little  Gueuk 
Sou.  After  a  storm  or  freshet,  their  alluvial  deposit  col- 
ors the  eastern  half  of  the  Bosphorns  for  miles  below 
their  mouths  with  a  deep  golden  yellow.  Meanwhile, 
the  western  half  remains  unchanged.  The  phenomenon 
is  presented  of  two  independent  streams  pouring  down  the 
strait,  touching  each  other  all  along  their  course,  but  not 
commingling,  with  everywhere  the  line  of  contact  not 
indefinite,  but  sharply  defined. 


224  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  Buyouk  Gueuk  Sou  takes  its  rise  in  the  inland 
forest  of  Alem  Dagh,  which  is  far  more  extensive,  and 
contains  larger  trees,  than  the  European  forest  of  Bel- 
grade. The  plains  along  its  banks  are  vaunted  by  the 
Eastern  poets  as  little  inferior  to  the  fields  of  paradise, 
and  as  superior  to  the  three  paradises  of  earth,  —  the 
plain  of  Damascus,  the  vale  of  Mecca,  and  the  meadow  of 
Shaab  Beram  in  Southern  Persia.  Gueuk  Sou  would  be 
hardly  less  beautiful  if  it  revealed  nowhere  the  touch  of 
a  human  hand.  Its  loveliness  it  owes  to  Nature,  whose 
work  no  art  can  emulate.  Nevertheless,  the  features 
added  by  man,  the  ancient  castle,  the  Ottoman  cemetery, 
with  carved  and  painted  sepulchral  stones, 

"Where  white  and  gold  and  brilliant  hue 
Contrast  with  Nature's  gravest  glooms, 
As  these  again  with  heaven's  clear  blue," 

the  rustic  bridges,  the  picturesquely  scattered  and  quaintly 
constructed  buildings,  are  in  harmony  with  the  natural 
background,  and  enhance  the  whole  effect.  They  do 
not  seem  creations,  but  spontaneous  and  appropriate 
growths. 

Which  of  the  different  plains,  or  what  part  of  the  river- 
bank  is  the  more  delightful,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  The 
Greeks  love  best  to  stroll  and  sing  in  the  wooded  recesses 
far  up  the  stream,  where  the  great  trees  touch  the  waters 
with  their  pendent  branches.  Foreign  residents  instinc- 
tively disembark  at  the  broken  landing  near  the  upper 
bridge,  and  wander  towards  the  left.  The  plain,  which 
fronts  the  Bosphorus  between  the  two  river-mouths,  is 
dearest  to  the  Ottomans. 

The  latter  has  been  for  centuries  the  favorite  pleasure- 
ground  of  the  higher  class  of  Ottoman  ladies,  and,  with 


226 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


the  exception  of  the  Sweet  Waters  of  Europe  on  the 
Golden  Horn,  the  must  popular  resort  of  the  common 
people.  Formerly  on  every  Friday  in  spring  and  summer 
it  was  thronged  by  thousands. 

"  Sherbet  and  song  and  roses,  with  a  love-smile  flashed  between." 

Though  of  late  years  the  numbers  have  largely  decreased, 
every  week  crowds  flock  to  it  still.     From  an  Oriental 

fountain  one  may 
draw  the  clearest 
and  coldest  water. 
A  plain  white  mar- 
ble mihrab  fronts 
Mecca,  and  indi- 
cates the  direction 
whither  the  prayers 
of  the  pleasure-seek- 
ers should  be  ad- 
dressed. On  the 
south  rises  the  gem- 
like kiosk,  erected 
in  1853,  for  Sultan 
Abd-ul  Medjicl. 
There  his  refined  and  sensitive  nature  took  greater  delight 
than  in  his  showier  and  more  oppressive  palaces.  This 
kiosk  has  become  the  guest-house,  where  are  commonly 
entertained  those  foreign  princes  whose  rank  is  inferior  to 
that  of  reigning  sovereigns.  Alexander,  Prince  of  Bul- 
garia, Milan,  Prince  of  Servia,  Nicolas,  Prince  of  Mon- 
tenegro, Rassam  Khan,  Commander  of  the  Persian  army 
and  also  one  of  the  seven-score  uncles  of  the  Shah,  have 
been  among  its  more  recent  occupants. 

The  outlook  upon  the  Bosphorus  is  most  magnificent. 


The  Fouxtaix  of  Gueuk  Sou 


3 

z 

M 
P 

P 

o 

H 
<1 


228  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  enchanting  trend  of  the  opposite  shore  comprises  the 
promontory  of  Arnaoutkeui,  the  lovely  bay  of  Bebek,  and 
the  whole  populated  sweep  northward  to  Yenikeui.  Most 
prominent  and  most  grand  of  all  is  the  mighty  outline  of 
Mohammed's  Fortress,  shut  within  the  sublime  silhouette 
of  the  European  hills  which  bound  the  western  sky. 

The  genius  of  General  Wallace  has  invested  the  White 
Castle  of  Anadoli  Hissar  with  a  peculiar  romantic  and 
poetic  interest.  His  marvellous  tale  of  the  "  Prince  of 
India"  is  equally  faithful  to  local  topography  and  to  the 
spirit  of  that  age  which  it  portrays.  His  characters, 
whether  historic  or  fictitious,  vibrate  with  all  the  more 
reality  because  the  great  master  never  trespasses  upon 
truth  in  the  least  physical  detail,  but  describes  the  rock, 
the  stream,  the  hill,  every  feature  of  the  landscape  which 
he  touches,  with  Homeric  accuracy.  So,  as  one  enters 
now  the  river-mouth,  between  its  wide  extended  osier- 
banks,  the  Castle  becomes  visible  from  base  to  upper 
merlon ;  in  front  rises  the  single,  solitary  peak  that  for 
a  time  held  back  the  storm  from  Lael,  and  the  sea-birds 
congregate  around,  as  of  old,  in  noisy  flocks. 

Where  every  natural  feature  remains  unchanged,  it 
seems  as  if  the  human  actors  in  the  absorbing  story  were 
existent  and  only  waiting  to  reappear.  One  glances  north- 
ward, half-expectant  of  the  troop  of  martial  riders,  and 
backward  to  the  west,  for  the  swiftly  coming  boat  of  the 
Princess  Irene  and  the  Russian  monk.  He  populates  the 
Castle,  now  silent,  cold,  deserted,  with  its  tumultuous,  yet 
obsequious  throng.  The  sounds,  which  on  the  ear  of 
fancy  break  the  stillness,  are  the  strange  wooing  of  Mo- 
hammed with  the  tale  of  Hatim  and  the  astrologic  lore  of 
the  Prince  of  India.  But  the  conclusion  of  the  dreamer's 
argument  is  as  iridescent  now  as  four  and  a  half  centuries 


230  CONSTANTINOPLE 

ago  :  "  Titles  may  remain,  Jew,  Moslem,  Christian,  Bud- 
dhist, but  there  shall  be  an  end  of  all  wars  for  religion. 
All  mankind  are  to  be  brethren  in  Him.  Unity  in  God, 
and  from  it,  a  miracle  of  the  ages  slow  to  come,  but  cer- 
tain, the  evolution  of  peace  and  good-will  amongst  men." 
It  was  astounding  doctrine  for  the  gray  fortress  to  hear, 
and  yet  no  less  unfamiliar  there  than  elsewhere  in  the 
world. 

South  of  the  plain  of  Gueuk  Son  extends  the  long,  high 
slender  plateau  of  Kandili,  the  Lantern.  If  the  tales  of 
the  Ottomans  are  true,  the  word  Kandili  has  another  and 
a  darker  meaning  as  the  Tongue  of  Blood.  They  say  that 
during  the  plague  of  1637,  Mourad  IV  passed  the  summer 
here,  and  that  his  inhuman  cruelty  gave  to  the  tongue-like 
cape  its  sanguinary  name. 

Over  the  top  of  the  hill  spreads  the  enormous  pal- 
ace of  Adileh  Sultana,  sister  of  Sultan  Abd-ul  Med j id  and 
of  Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz,  and  daughter  of  Mahmoud  II. 
From  this  height,  Haroun  al  Rashid  caught  his  first 
glimpse  of  the  Bosphorus.  Nowhere  could  he  have  en- 
joyed a  more  imperial  view.  His  glance  embraced  the 
greater  part  of  the  strait,  and  included  a  portion  of  the 
Marmora  and  the  mediaeval  Byzantine  capital. 

See  the  grand  Haroun  al  Rashid  ride  once  more  through  Kandili, 

Clad  in  justice  as  in  armor,  girt  by  lords  of  high  degree: 

While  the  tales  of  childhood's  bosom,  gorgeous  feasts  and  glorious 

fights, 
Trooping,   pour  through   memory's   temple   from   the   old   Arabian 

Nights. 

Here  the  gifted  Melling  found  the  richest  field  for  his  ar- 
tistic genius  ;  and  his  great  work  is  full  of  pictures  taken 
from  this  point. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  231 

The  charming  fountain  in  the  market  is  the  votive  offer- 
ing of  an  Ottoman  lady,  Khadidjah  Khanoum,  on  her  re- 
covery from  chronic  disease.  On  the  shore  is  the  palace 
of  the  versatile  Moustapha  Fazil  Pasha,  brother  of  Ismail 
Pasha,  the  Khedive  of  Egypt,  and  according  to  the  cus- 
toms of  Mussulman  succession,  heir  to  the  Egyptian 
vice-regal  throne.  The  village  is  the  residence  of  a  cos- 
mopolitan native  and  foreign  community,  among  whom 
are  English  and  Italian  families  of  prominence.  Here  the 
British  Consul,  Mr  Charles  James  Tarring,  composed  his 
work  on  "  British  Consular  Jurisdiction  in  the  East." 
The  houses  upon  the  quay  are  endangered  by  their  near- 
ness to  the  water,  the  bowsprits  of  vessels  being  often 
forced  against  them  by  the  current,  which  is  here  more 
rapid  than  elsewhere  on  the  Asiatic  side. 

A  sudden  bend  in  the  shore  forms  the  bay  of  Vanikeui, 
named  from  a  wealthy  Ottoman,  who  owned  all  the  adja- 
cent region.  The  ancient  name  of  the  village,  Nikopolis, 
City  of  Victory,  was  given  in  memory  of  some  long-since- 
forgotten  triumph. 

Then  follows  a  serrated  line  of  tiny  capes  and  bays. 
Along  the  shore,  in  summer,  groups  of  Ottoman  ladies  sit 
the  whole  day  long,  seldom  speaking,  seldom  moving,  con- 
tent with  the  luxury  of  existence,  rapt  in  silent  contem- 
plation of  the  landscape,  to  which  they  themselves  impart 
an  added  charm. 

A  narrow  road  zigzags  behind  Vanikeui  up  the  hill  to 
the  site  of  an  imperial  kiosk.  Nothing  remains  of  its 
former  grandeur  except  sombre  stone-pines  and  a  crum- 
bling terrace.  Here  Prince  Soule'iman,  a  young  man  twenty- 
one  years  old  and  of  unusual  promise,  was  hidden  in  1515 
by  officers  of  the  palace,  and  remained  secretly  confined 
for  over  twenty  months.     Sultan  Selim   I,  the  slayer  of 


232  coys  t.  l  ynyoPLE 


his  father  and  of  his  only  brother,  had  taken  umbrage  at 
the  presence  of  his  son  and  heir.  To  his  gloomy  soul, 
that  son's  existence  was  the  constant  reminder  of  his  own 
mortality,  and  the  threat  of  a  successor.  So,  when  about 
to  march  against  Persia  and  Egypt,  he  gave  orders  that 
Souleiman  should  be  put  to  death.  The  officers  affected 
to  obey,  but,  at  peril  of  their  lives,  concealed  the  prince. 
When  Selim  returned  in  triumph,  the  dark  fit  had  passed, 
and  he  rejoiced  unspeakably  that  Souleiman  was  still 
alive. 

West  of  the  terrace  and  the  pines  is  the  fire-tower  or 
signal-station,  where  everv  conflagration  in  the  city  is 
announced  by  seven  discharges  of  a  cannon.  At  night, 
additional  fire-signals  indicate  the  locality  of  the  disaster. 
There,  too,  during  the  month  of  Ramazan,  a  cannon  is 
discharged  at  sunset  to  declare  that  that  day's  rigorous 
fast  is  done.  No  music  was  ever  so  anxiously  and  so 
impatiently  awaited,  or  ever  fell  on  so  willing  ears,  as  its 
deep  boom  on  the  sullen,  famishing  tens  of  thousands. 
As  the  first  note  falls,  the  entire  aspect  of  the  Mussulmans 
changes.  The  ready  glass  of  water  is  quaffed,  the  bit  of 
bread  is  snatched,  the  cigarette  is  lighted,  and  a  deep, 
silent  hilarity  takes  possession  of  all. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill  are  the  vine-embowered  dwellings 
of  Koulehli,  or  The  Tower.  The  name  is  derived  from  a 
formidable  pile  built  by  Souleiman  I,  which,  after  having 
stood  erect  two  hundred  years,  was  torn  down  to  furnish 
materials  for  the  Palace  of  Achmet  III  at  the  Sweet 
Waters  on  the  Golden  Horn.  Here  are  spacious  and  well- 
kept  cavalry  barracks,  dating  from  1827. 

Here  is  the  Ayasma  or  Holy  Fountain  of  Saint  Atha- 
nasios,  greatly  revered  by  the  Greeks.  It  is  the  only  relic 
of  the  Church  of  the  Archangel  Michael,  founded  by  Con- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  233 

stantine,  and  of  the  illustrious  monastery  built  around  it, 
and  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Virgin  of  Metanoia  or  Repent- 
ance, by  the  Empress  Theodora.  Few  women  have  ever 
equalled  the  consort  of  Justinian  in  active  sympathy  for, 
and  endeavors  to  assist,  the  needy  or  unfortunate  of  her 
own  sex.  Nor  were  her  efforts  limited  to  any  one  class 
of  women  or  to  any  one  form  of  feminine  suffering.  Here 
she  founded  an  asylum  for  outcasts,  the  most  despised, 
over  whom  she  extended  her  personal  supervision  and 
care.  Speedily  more  than  five  hundred  repentant  Magda- 
lens  found  a  refuge  in  this  peaceful  retreat.  This  monas- 
tery was  one  of  the  noblest  monuments  of  that  glorious 
dual  reign  of  Justinian  and  Theodora. 

Tchenghelkeui,  the  Village  of  the  Anchor,  attributes  its 
name  to  Mohammed  II.  In  his  boyhood  he  there  discov- 
ered a  small  iron  anchor,  which  he  regarded  as  an  auspi- 
cious omen  for  his  future  career. 

Under  every  form  of  government,  and  through  every 
change  of  dynasty,  Beylerbey  has  well  deserved  its  name, 
which  signifies  the  Abode  of  Princes.  It  was  dearly  loved 
by  the  Byzantine  emperors  and  by  the  Ottoman  sultans. 
Its  history  is  summed  up  in  the  names  and  the  dates  of 
construction  and  demolition  of  its  many  palaces.  In  1718, 
after  the  disastrous  treaty  of  Passarovitch,  it  was  com- 
monly believed  that  the  Ottomans  were  exhausted  from 
poverty  and  weakness,  and  that  the  end  of  the  Empire  was 
near.  The  Grand  Vizir,  Damat  Ibrahim  Pasha,  strained 
every  nerve  to  conceal  the  calamities  of  war,  and  to  im- 
press the  European  ambassadors  with  the  immense  re- 
sources still  remaining  to  the  Sultan.  He  began  a  series 
of  apparently  prodigal,  yet  shrewdly  planned  constructions, 
recalling  the  days  of  Soule'iman  the  Magnificent.  With 
seeming  utter  carelessness  of  cost,  he  covered  Beylerbey 


234 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


with  edifices  of  every  sort,  So  splendid  did  the  village  be- 
come, and  the  centre  of  so  much  activity,  that  for  a  time 
its  common  name  was  Pherrach  Pheza,  the  Increase  of  Joy. 
The  admirable  niosque,  now  standing  on  the  site  of  one 

earlier  built  by  Ach- 
met  I,  was  erected  by 
Abd-til  Hamid  I  in 
1776. 

But  everything  else 
paled  before  the  palace, 
raised  on  the  water's 
edge  in  1830  by  Mah- 
moud  II.  When  La- 
martine  beheld  it,  he 
exclaimed  in  ecstasy 
that  its  peer  did  not 
exist  in  Europe.  What 
would  have  been  the 
rhapsody  of  the  poet- 
statesman  of  France 
could  he  have  looked 
on  the  fairy-like  crea- 
tion that  to-day  occu- 
pies the  spot !  Its  pre- 
decessor, built  of  wood, 
could  not  content 
Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz. 
Shortly  after  his  accession,  he  tore  it  down,  and  be- 
gan the  construction  of  Beylerbey  Serai,  the  Palace 
of  Beylerbey.  This  remains,  the  fairest  architectural 
achievement  of  his  reign  and  the  most  beautiful  structure 
on  the  Bosphorns.  It  is  a  pile  of  the  purest,  snowiest 
marble.     No  other  Ottoman  edifice  so  combines  what  is 


Abd-ul  IIamid  T 


o 
o 


236  CONSTANTINOPLE 

most  exquisite  in  Eastern  and  "Western  architecture  and 
art.  The  frescos  of  the  upper  halls  and  chambers,  elabo- 
rate and  profuse,  are  the  work  of  the  foremost  Italian 
artists.  The  great  marble  hall  below,  with  its  colonnades 
and  fountains,  is  Saracenic  in  every  detail.  The  mind 
can  conceive  nothing  more  delicious,  more  luxurious  in  its 
simplicity,  more  satisfying  to  every  sense,  than  that  mag- 
nificent hall. 

Of  recent  years,  the  palace  has  been  devoted  to  the 
reception  of  royal  guests.  It  was  the  residence  of  the 
Empress  Eugenie  during  the  greater  part  of  her  stay  in 
1869.  The  suite  of  rooms  she  occupied  was  furnished  in 
exact  reproduction  of  her  private  apartments  at  the  Tui- 
leries.  Here  also  were  entertained  Joseph  II  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales,  and  Nasr 
Eddin,  the  Persian  Shah.  Over  all  the  palace  there  now 
hangs  an  increasing  air  of  abandonment  and  neglect.  As 
one  admires  its  loveliness  from  the  water,  it  is  hardly  less 
beautiful  to  the  eye ;  but  every  room  within  bears  witness 
to  the  fact  that  the  resources  of  the  State  are  no  longer 
squandered  as  formerly  on  imperial  bagatelles. 

The  glorious  garden,  laid  out  in  1639  by  Mourad  IV, 
and  often  since  beautified  and  enlarged,  spreads  over  the 
side  and  crest  of  the  hill.  No  mere  hasty  glance  of  the 
favored  stranger,  permitted  to  enter  its  guarded  precincts, 
will  reveal  its  marvels.  Moreover,  ordinarily  the  infre- 
quent visitors  are  more  intent  on  the  caged  royal  tigers  of 
Bengal  and  on  the  troops  of  ostriches,  sole  reminders  of 
the  menagerie  of  Sultan  Abd-ul  Aziz,  than  on  the  myste- 
ries of  glades  and  walks  and  sequestered  nooks  and  won- 
derful outlooks,  devised  with  Oriental  skill.  Yet  all  its 
heightened  natural  charm  could  not  soothe  the  morose- 
ness  of  Mourad  IV.     As  he  strolled  along  the  garden,  a 


pq 
P3 

pq 

o 

O 

< 

Ph 

w 

En 


238 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


prey  to  his  own  ennui,  all  light-heartedness  and  gayety 
seemed  to  the  sullen  monarch  a  mockery  of  his  gloomy 
soul.     His  attendants  had  orders  to  shoot  down  whoever 

a  p  p  r  o  a  c  h  e  d 
the  garden 
with  a  happy 
and  contented 
look. 

Leila  Ha- 
noum  gives  a 
fairer  picture 
of  the  garden's 
later  days  in 
herfascinating 
romance,  "  Un 
Drame  a  Con- 
stantinople." 
After  all,  hu- 
man hearts  are 
much  the  same, 
whether  Chris- 
tian or  Mos- 
lem, whether 
the  first  real 
hear  t-b  eat 
throb  in  the  seclusion  of  the  inviolate  harem,  or  in  a 
Western  home.  A'icha  Hanoum  and  the  gallant  Salaed- 
din,  with  a  brighter  memory,  though  it  be  all  of  ro- 
mance, have  exorcised  the  hill  from  the  dark  shadow  of 
the  misanthrope. 

South  of  Beylerbey  are  the  cape  and  harbor  of  Stauros, 
the  Village  of  the  Cross.  The  Ottomans  have  retained 
the  ancient  name,  but,  unable  to  pronounce  an  initial  s 


MOURAD   IV 


THE  BOSPHORUS  239 

followed  by  a  consonant,  have  made  of  it  Istavros.  Man, 
encroaching  upon  the  water,  has  almost  filled  the  bay  and 
straightened  the  former  concave  line  of  the  shore.  Here, 
according  to  tradition,  after  his  work  at  Foundonkli  was 
done,  the  Apostle  Andrew  lingered  while  on  his  way  to 
Russia.  Here,  close  to  the  water's  edge,  he  planted  a 
gigantic  cross ;  and  the  early  converts  swore  that  they 
would  be  faithful  to  the  new  faith  as  long  as  the  sacred 
symbol  remained  in  place.  Here,  in  the  bright  imperial 
day  of  Christianity,  Constantine  founded  the  Church  of 
the  Crucifixion  and  surmounted  it  with  a  golden  cross, 
which  the  ships  saluted  as  they  passed.  Here  remains 
are  still  identified  of  the  Orphanage  of  Saint  Paul,  one  of 
the  largest  among  the  many  philanthropic  institutions  of 
the  mediaeval  city. 

The  village  of  Kouskoundjouk  spreads  along  the  Bos- 
phorus  and  far  up  the  hill,  covering  the  sides  of  a  deep 
and  many-ridged  ravine.  The  unsavory  stream,  which 
dribbles  clown  in  a  half-dry,  slimy  bed,  is  the  ancient 
Chrysokeramos.  The  place  teems  with  population,  mostly 
Armenians  and  Jews.  Its  Armenian  Church  of  Saint 
Gregory  the  Illuminator  is  an  architectural  curiosity, 
being  the  only  Armenian  sanctuary  in  the  capital  which 
is  surmounted  by  a  dome. 

The  Greek  Church  of  Saint  Pantelemon  preserves  the 
name,  and  perhaps  occupies  the  site,  of  one  of  the  most 
historic  churches  in  Constantinople.  It  was  founded 
during  the  sixth  century  in  that  brilliant  period  of  the 
Justinian  dynasty,  and  was  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Virgin. 
Among  its  cherished  relics  it  claimed  remains  of  Saints 
Peter  and  Paul,  and  of  a  host  of  lesser  martyrs.  Its 
dependent  buildings  included  a  palace  and  a  hospital. 
Covered  with  gilded  tiles,  it  was  deemed  a  marvel  as  it 
flashed  the  sunlight  from  its  burnished  roof. 


240  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Thither  the  Emperor,  whose  life  was  a  prescribed  and 
often  tedious  ritual,  came  in  state  by  sea  on  the  twenty- 
ninth  of  July,  and,  disembarking  near  the  present  steamer 
landing,  rode  upon  a  war-horse  to  the  church's  door. 
Afterwards  it  became  a  female  monastery,  where  many 
a  princess,  weary  of  the  world  or  survivor  of  a  fallen 
dynasty,  shaved  her  head  and  assumed  the  veil.  In  it 
was  secretly  and  hurriedly  buried  in  842,  the  brave 
Theophobos,  a  Persian  prince  and  brother-in-law  of  the 
Empress  Theodora,  whom  with  his  dying  breath  the  Em- 
peror Theophilos  ordered  to  execution.  All  the  highborn 
recluses  were  long  ago  forgotten,  and  an  ascetic  Mussul- 
man of  the  fifteenth  century,  Kouskoun,  has  left  his  name 
to  the  place. 

Indicating  the  boundary  line  between  Kouskoundjouk 
and  Scutari  is  a  tiny  bay,  so  banked  in  marble  as  to 
resemble  an  artificial  basin.  To  it  attaches  the  most 
venerable  of  all  the  Bosphoric  legends.  Through  unnum- 
bered centuries  this  has  been  indicated  as  the  spot  where 
Io,  transformed  into  a  cow,  plunged  into  the  water,  and, 
crossing  in  safety  to  Seraglio  Point,  bequeathed  to  the 
strait  the  name  of  Bosphorus,  the  Ford  or  Crossing  of  the 
Cow.  Perhaps  the  Turkish  name  of  the  bay,  Okiouz 
Liman,  the  Harbor  of  the  Ox,  is  only  a  coincidence,  but 
more  likely  a  corrupted  survival  of  the  myth.  In  1886  the 
desperate  exploit  of  Io  was  strikingly  repeated.  A  barge, 
laden  with  cattle,  was  wrecked  at  the  entrance  of  the 
little  harbor.  Several  of  the  cows  and  oxen  swam  across, 
and,  like  the  metamorphosed  fair  one  of  Zeus,  safely  came 
on  shore  at  Seraglio  Point. 


THE  BOSPHORUS  241 


SCUTARI,    CHRYSOPOLIS 

The  immense  triangular  promontory  which  terminates 
the  Asiatic  shore,  where  Asia  advances  farther  west  than 
elsewhere  along  the  Bosphorus,  is  crowded  with  the  dwell- 
ings and  graves  of  Scutari.  Packed  in  through  the  wide 
extent  the  houses  of  the  living  press  against  one  another, 
and  the  measureless  cemetery  is  even  more  distended  with 
the  elbowing,  superposed  habitations  of  the  dead.  In  a 
place  so  seething  with  humanity,  one  individual  life 
appears  of  little  moment,  while  the  millions,  resolved  to 
their  native  dust,  strip  death  of  terror  and  leave  it  only 
monotonous. 

Certain  quarters  are  inhabited  by  Greeks  and  Arme- 
nians whose  central  points  are  their  churches  of  the 
Prophet  Elijah  and  Saint  Paraskeve  and  of  the  Holy 
Cross  and  Saint  Garabet.  On  the  highest  eminence  of 
the  city  are  the  homes  of  many  American  Protestant 
missionaries.  Situated  on  a  splendid  site  is  the  admirable 
American  College  for  Young  Women,  whence,  as  also 
from  the  homes  of  the  missionaries  a  beneficent  nine- 
teenth-century influence  radiates  to  the  farthest  corners 
of  the  Empire.  Yet  these  native  and  foreign  Christian 
factors,  discordant  with  the  general  atmosphere,  by  sharper 
contrast  emphasize  the  fact  that  Scutari  is,  above  all  other 
quarters  of  the  capital,  Ottoman,  Oriental,  Mussulman. 
From  its  height  it  regards  Stamboul  askance  as  renegade 
in  customs  and  temporizing  in  ideas  and  faith.  Galata- 
Pera  it  disdains  with  a  fanaticism  that  never  grows  cold, 
and  with  resentment  at  its  commercial  prosperity  and  its 
financial  and  political  power. 

Its  cemetery  is  at  once  its  most  prominent  and  most 


16 


242  CONSTANTINOPLE 

typical  characteristic  and  possession.  Generations  before 
the  accession  of  Mohammed  II,  the  Mussulmans  were 
buried  here.  After  the  downfall  of  the  Byzantine  Empire, 
although  the  entire  Bosphorus  had  accepted  the  sway  of 
the  sultans,  this  cemetery  continued  the  favorite  place  of 
interment  for  the  wealthy,  the  powerful,  and  the  holy. 
The  life  might  be  passed  on  European  soil,  but  the  last 
wish  of  many  a  dying  Mussulman  was  to  sleep  in  the  con- 
tinent, sanctified  by  its  holy  cities  of  Mecca,  Medina,  and 
Jerusalem.  From  the  days  of  their  earliest  European 
triumphs  a  tradition  has  existed  among  the  Ottomans  that 
a  time  was  fixed  in  the  book  of  Fate  when,  stripped  of 
their  ephemeral  possessions  in  the  west,  their  descendants 
should  return  to  their  native  continent.  They  shrunk  at 
the  foreboding  that  some  day  the  graves  of  their  dead  in 
Europe  would  be  trampled  by  a  victorious  foreign  heel. 
Millions  have  indeed  on  the  other  side  of  the  strait  been 
buried  near  the  scenes  where  they  lived  and  died.  Never- 
theless, an  interminable  procession  of  dead  has  filed  from 
Stamboul  and  the  western  shore  of  the  Bosphorus  to  this 
hallowed  spot. 

"For  here,  whate'er  his  life's  degree, 

The  Muslim  loves  to  rest  at  last, 
Loves  to  recross  the  hand  of  sea 

That  parts  him  from  his  people's  past. 
'T  is  well  to  live  and  lord  o'er  those 

By  whom  his  sires  were  most  renowned, 
But  his  tierce  heart  finds  hest  repose 

In  this  traditionary  ground." 

Nowhere  else,  till  within  recent  years,  has  the  custom 
been  so  well  obseiwed  of  setting  out  a  cypress  at  the  birth, 
and  another  at  the  death,  of  every  Mussulman.  The 
hardy   tree   grudgingly  strikes   its   young   roots   into   the 


THE  BOSPHORUS  24o 

ground,  and  only  a  small  proportion  survive  of  those  thus 
planted  by  pious  care.  Yet  the  stranger,  with  faint  con- 
ception of  the  myriads  reposing  in  this  cemetery,  is  almost 
ready  to  imagine  that  the  mouldering  forms  below,  and 
the  creaking  dismal  trees  above,  are  of  equal  number. 
As  from  a  distant  land  one's  mind  turns  back  to  memo- 
ries of  that  mighty  hill,  the  waving,  funereal  forest  stands 
forth,  solitary  and  distinct,  even  as  its  all-pervading  maj- 
esty dominates  alike  the  living  and  the  dead  who  rest 
beneath  its  shadow. 

The  meaning  of  the  name  Scutari  is  uncertain.  Per- 
haps it  is  derived  from  the  Persian  ouskioudar,  or  astan- 
dar,  a  messenger,  inasmuch  as  Scutari  is  the  western 
terminus  of  the  main  trans- Anatolian  route  from  Asia. 
More  likely  it  comes  from  scutarii,  the  shield-bearing 
guards,  inasmuch  as  a  large  detachment  of  that  formida- 
ble corps  was  always  stationed  here  under  the  earlier 
emperors.  Villehardouin  describes  almost  with  glee  the 
good  cheer  he  and  his  comrades  of  the  Fourth  Crusade 
found  at  the  palace  of  "  Escutaire "  in  1203. 

Its  earliest  name  was  Ouranopolis,  the  Heavenly  City. 
During  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  often  denominated  Pera, 
or  Beyond,  as  the  settlement  beyond  the  Bosphorus.  To 
antiquity,  and  until  the  fall  of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  it 
was  commonly  known  as  Chrysopolis,  the  Golden  City,  by 
which  name  to  this  day  the  Greeks  fondly  call  it.  The 
suggestive  epithet  may  be  applied  on  account  of  its  ac- 
cumulated wealth,  or  because  of  the  treasures  stored  here 
by  the  Persians  during  their  march  against  the  Scythians 
five  hundred  and  twelve  years  before  Christ.  Another 
derivation  links  it  with  the  Trojan  War,  as  Chrysoupolis, 
the  City  of  Chryses.  He  was  the  son  of  Agamemnon  and 
of  the  maiden  Chryseis,  whose  captivity  roused  the  wrath 


244  CONSTANTINOPLE 

of  Apollo  in  answer  to  her  father's  prayer,  and  introduces 
the  Iliad.  According  to  the  myth,  Chryses,  while  fleeing 
the  pursuit  of  Egisthos  and  Clytemnestra,  and  seeking  his 
half-sister,  Iphigenia,  died,  and  was  buried  here. 

At  first  it  was  hardly  more  than  a  dependence  of 
Chalkedon.  The  Athenians,  during  their  brief  suprem- 
acy, surrounded  it  with  walls,  and  built  a  custom-house. 
where  all  ships  sailing  to  or  from  the  Black  Sea  were 
obliged  to  pay  toll.  Xenophon  and  his  Ten  Thousand 
remained  here  a  week,  finding  a  market  for  their  booty. 
Here  in  323  the  hosts  of  Paganism,  marshalled  for  a  last- 
hopeless  battle,  and  led  by  the  aged  Emperor  Licinius, 
were  defeated  by  the  forces  of  Constantine.  Sometimes, 
during  their  wars  with  the  Byzantine  Empire,  the  Per- 
sians obtained  possession  of  the  city ;  and  once,  during 
the  reign  of  the  terrible  Khosroes  II,  they  held  it  almost 
an  entire  decade.  When,  after  a  frightful  struggle,  the 
Persian  Empire  was  shattered,  and  Khosroes  dead,  and 
Heraklios  returned  at  the  head  of  his  legions  to  Chrys- 
opolis,  no  ordinary  passage  of  the  Bosphorus  was  appro- 
priate to  such  a  victory.  A  temporary  bridge  was 
constructed  from  the  Asiatic  shore  to  Seraglio  Point, 
and  over  it  the  Emperor  and  his  army  made  their  tri- 
umphal entry. 

Here,  less  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  converged  the 
great  caravan  routes,  which,  winding  through  Asia  Minor 
from  Syria  and  Arabia,  from  Persia  and  India,  directed 
hither  the  rarest  and  most  precious  productions  of  the 
East.  The  khans  of  Scutari  were  then  vast  and  numer- 
ous. Their  chambers  were  always  crowded  with  camel- 
drivers  and  merchant  princes,  and  their  courts  were  heaped 
with  countless  bales  of  costly  merchandise.  Changes  in 
navigation,   and   the   consequent   growth   of   other   ports, 


THE  BOSPHORUS  245 

have  bereft  the  city  of  her  former  revenues,  and  she  sits 
upon  her  hill  neglected  and  despoiled. 

Almost  sole  reminder  of  the  long  sumpter  trains  of 
camels,  which  strode  in  continuous  files  through  her 
streets,  it  is  from  Scutari  that  the  Sacred  Caravan  begins 
each  year  its  old-time,  weary  march  to  Mecca.  At  its 
head  paces  the  Sacred  Camel,  which  has  been  brought 
from  the  Sultan's  palace,  laden  with  the  offerings  of  the 
Sultan.  Then  follows  a  motley  throng  of  fezzed  and  tur- 
baned  men,  with  closely  shaven  heads,  and  in  all  variety 
of  attire.  This  is  the  official  and  ceremonious  departure ; 
but  the  practices  even  of  Islam  have  been  modified  by  the 
inventions  and  appliances  of  the  West.  Few  of  the  devo- 
tees are  to  make  the  toilsome,  dangerous  pilgrimage  on 
foot.  They,  and  even  the  Sacred  Camel,  a  little  farther 
on  will  be  embarked  on  foreign  vessels  and  transported  to 
the  shores  of  Arabia  by  the  power  of  steam. 

Scutari  possesses  many  baths,  fountains,  hospitals,  and 
schools,  and  every  possible  institution  of  Mussulman 
beneficence. 

Second  only  to  its  cemetery  in  impressiveness  are  its 
moscpies,  wdiich,  with  their  vast  and  shady  courtyards, 
occupy  most  delightful  situations.  Were  Stamboul,  with 
its  larger  and  more  elaborate  structures,  not  so  prominent 
in  the  horizon,  these  monuments  of  art  and  piety  would 
awaken  universal  interest  and  admiration.  Five  are  the 
work  of  validehs,  or  sultanas,  who  had  seen  their  sons 
ascend  the  throne.  They  are  the  tribute  of  maternal 
gratitude  as  well  as  of  religious  devotion. 

Eski  Valideh  Djami,  the  Old  Mosque  of  the  Valideh,  is 
surrounded  by  an  enormous  courtyard,  in  the  quietest. 
dreamiest,  most  slumberous  quarter  of  Scutari.  It  was  com- 
pleted in  1583  by  Safieh,  Sultana  of  Selim  II,  and  mother 


2-10  CONSTANTINOPLE 

of  Mourad  III.  Its  mihrab,  of  unusual  depth  and  peculiar 
form,  resembles  the  apse  of  a  church.  Its  fountain  is  a 
gem  of  originality  and  quaintness.  Yeni  Valideh  Djami, 
the  New  Mosque  of  the  Valideh.  was  built  by  the  beautiful 
Rebieh  Goulnous,  the  Rose-Water  of  Spring.  This  lady's 
life  presents  strange  vicissitudes.  The  daughter  of  a  village 
Greek  priest,  she  was  passionately  loved  by  Mohammed 
IV.  After  his  deposition,  she  wras  kept  in  strict  confine- 
ment for  eight  years  at  Eski  Serai.  Mean  while,  Soulei- 
man  II  and  Aclimet  II  occupied  the  throne.  The  accession 
of  her  son  Moustapha  II,  in  160-3,  restored  her  to  liberty 
and  power.  During  the  remaining  twenty  years  of  her 
life  she  enjoyed  with  him,  and  with  her  second  son, 
Aclimet  III,  that  unbounded  influence  which  the  filial 
devotion  of  the  Ottoman  Sultan  always  accords  his 
mother.  Her  mosque,  begun  in  1707,  required  four  years 
for  completion. 

Tchinili  Djami.  the  Tile  Mosque,  was  erected  by  Mach- 
pe'iker,  Sultana  of  Aclimet  I.  Both  outside  and  inside  it 
is  lined  with  Persian  tiles,  so  rare  and  precious  that  the 
heart  of  a  connoisseur  throbs  with  covetousness  and  envy. 
Ayasma  Djami,  erected  on  the  site  of  a  Holy  Fountain,  by 
Moustapha  III,  to  the  memory  of  his  mother.  Emineh 
Sultana,  stands  on  a  high  bluff  close  to  the  water,  and 
serves  as  a  beacon  to  ships  on  the  Marmora.  The  Mosque 
of  Selim  III,  on  the  right  of  the  prodigious  barracks,  is 
the  most  costly  and  pretentious  edifice  in  Scutari. 

The  finest  and  oldest  of  all  is  that  erected  by  Soule'i- 
man  I  in  1-j47,  to  gratify  his  beloved  daughter,  Mihrima 
Sultana.  It  is  situated  on  the  long-ago  filled-up  harbor, 
once  so  ample  that  in  it  the  Athenians  constantly  main- 
tained a  fleet  of  thirty  ships.  It  is  called  Buyouk  Djami, 
or  the  Large   Mosque,  from  its  size,  and  Iskelessi  Djami, 


THE  BOSPHORUS  247 

or  the  Mosque  of  the  Landing,  as  being  close  to  the  local 
steamer-pier.  Its  poetic  name  of  Ibrik  Djami  supposes 
its  shape  to  resemble  that  of  an  inverted  water-jar. 

Scutari  is  the  stronghold  of  the  dervishes.  Of  their 
more  than  two  hundred  tekiehs  in  Constantinople  a  large 
proportion  are  located  here.  The  most  notable  are  those 
of  the  Halvetis  and  Roufais.  In  the  mosque  of  the 
former  is  chanted  every  midnight  the  temdjid,  or  petition 
for  divine  pity  upon  persons  who  cannot  sleep.  This 
prayer  can  be  repeated  only  here  and  in  Sancta  Sophia, 
except  that,  during  the  fast  of  Ramazan,  it  may  be  offered 
anywhere  at  will. 

The  Tekieh  of  the  Roufais  is  on  the  outer  western  edg;e 
of  the  great  cemetery.  Graves  of  deceased  dignitaries  of 
the  order  line  the  path  to  it  from  the  street.  It  is  a  low, 
rectangular,  two-storied  building.  The  larger  part  of  the 
ground-floor  is  occupied  by  the  main  hall,  surrounded  by  a 
gallery  for  spectators.  The  worship  of  the  Roufais  has 
its  principal  outward  manifestation  in  the  frenzied  ejacu- 
lation of  sacred  names  or  words,  whence  has  been  ap- 
plied to  them  their  common  foreign  title  of  Shouting 
or  Howling  Dervishes.  Their  full  service  lasts  more  than 
three  hours,  but  is  sometimes  abridged.  Formal  rites  of 
obeisance  to  their  sheik  and  intoning  Persian  and  Arab 
chants  precede  the  forming  of  a  circle  round  the  room. 
They  stand,  pressed  against  one  another,  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der, with  eyes  constantly  closed.  Slowly  they  begin  to 
swing  from  side  to  side  in  perfect  harmony,  holding  the 
right  foot  immovable,  but  advancing  and  retreating  side- 
ways with  the  left.  Meanwhile  they  shout  "  ya  Allah  " 
and  "ya  hou."  As  the  frenzy  grows,  sobs  and  groans 
mingle  with  their  cries.  As  they  become  wrought  to 
madness,  the  Mussulman   spectators  are   affected   by   the 


248  CONSTANTINOPLE 

delirium  and  spring  from  the  gallery  to  join  the  line. 
The  mad  shout,  at  first  clear  and  distinct,  becomes,  on 
lips  dripping  with  foam,  a  muffled  roar,  a  sort  of  pande- 
moniac  yell,  which  resembles  nothing  human.  More  than 
one  dervish,  at  last  physically  exhausted,  reels  forward, 
and  falls  in  a  fit  of  ecstasy.  Afterwards  those  still  pos- 
sessed of  their  self-control  leap  and  beat  the  floor  with 
their  feet,  and  howl  even  louder.  Often  after  conclusion 
of  the  exercises,  children,  and  most  frequently  babes,  are 
brought  in,  and  placed  face  downward  upon  sheepskins. 
Then  the  Sheik  arises  and  walks  upon  them  with  great 
tenderness  and  care,  being  supported  on  each  side  by  a 
dervish.  This  peculiar  application  of  his  presumably  holy 
feet  is  regarded  as  beneficial  to  the  child  ;  and  the  strange 
thing  is  that  the  children  never  seem  to  be  injured  by  the 
process. 

Around  the  walls  of  every  Roufai  tekieh  may  be  seen 
hanging  numerous  instruments  of  torture.  Their  use  is 
now  prohibited ;  but  in  former  times  they  were  emplo}Ted 
in  self-torment  weekly  by  eager  votaries.  The  zealots 
cooled  red-hot  irons  in  their  flesh,  and  held  them  in  their 
mouths,  and  drove  knives  through  their  cheeks  and  arms 
and  thighs.  These  instruments  they  called  giuller,  or  roses, 
from  the  foul  theory  that,  as  the  perfume  of  a  rose  is 
agreeable  to  man,  so  a  wound  self-inflicted  with  the  idea 
of  worship  is  grateful  to  God. 

According  to  the  Roufai's,  constant  repetition  of  the 
name  of  God  must  be  acceptable  in  His  ears,  —  most  ac- 
ceptable when  most  vehement  and  loud.  In  the  East,  as 
among  the  classic  Greeks  and  Romans,  it  has  always  been 
believed  that  frenzy  and  inspiration  are  the  same,  or  at 
least  akin.  As  the  Christian,  shocked  and  saddened, 
passes  from  the  steaming  hall,  he  should  remember,  be- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  249 

fore  he  disdains  the  Moslem,  and  exalts  himself,  that  prac- 
tices and  rites  equally  unnatural  and  grotesque  have 
been  tendered  in  the  name  of  worship  by  the  fanatics  of 
Christianity. 

A  furlong  distant  from  the  extreme  west  point  of  Scu- 
tari, there  rises,  on  a  little  island  in  the  Bosphorus,  the 
white,  high,  spired  edifice  called  by  the  Ottomans  Kiz 
Kouleh,  or  the  Maiden's  Tower.  Centuries  ago,  to  a  sul- 
tan a  child  was  born,  of  whom  wise  men  read  in  the  stars 
that  she  should  become  the  most  beautiful  maiden  in  the 
world,  but  should  die  from  the  bite  of  a  serpent  before  com- 
pleting her  eighteenth  year.  Her  father  believed  he  could 
baffle  fate  by  the  erection  of  this  tower.  Therein,  before 
reaching  girlhood,  she  was  confined  with  devoted  attend- 
ants. Soon  the  fame  of  her  wonderful  and  increasing 
beauty  spread  till  it  captivated  the  son  of  the  Shah.  He 
fled  from  Teheran  in  disguise,  and  passed  his  nights  in 
singing  Persian  love-songs  under  her  window.  His  infat- 
uation increased,  though  not  even  a  glimpse  of  her  white 
hand  rewarded  his  ardor.  Meanwhile  the  maiden  fell  as 
desperately  in  love  with  her  suitor,  whose  form  she  saw 
distinctly  and  many  times  from  her  latticed  window. 

At  last,  but  twenty-four  hours  were  needed  to  complete 
the  fateful  eighteen  years.  The  lover  grew  bold,  and  sent 
her  a  basket  of  Persian  roses.  As  the  princess  hung  over 
them  in  delight,  a  tiny  serpent  darted  from  their  dewy 
recesses  and  fastened  upon  her  arm.  The  prince,  still  lin- 
gering and  singing  in  his  boat,  knew  from  the  shrieks  and 
sudden  commotion  that  something  terrible  had  occurred. 
Springing  to  land,  he  found  all  vigilance  relaxed,  and 
rushed  to  the  maiden's  chamber,  where  she  lay  dying. 
Asking  only  that  they  might  perish  together,  he  began  to 
suck  the  poison  from  the  wound,  and  thus  saved  her  life. 


250  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  astrologers  declared  that  fate  had  been  fulfilled,  that 
the  maiden  had  indeed  died,  but  that  love  had  conquered 
death.  The  Sultan  accorded  the  suitor  his  daughter's 
hand ;  away  they  sped  to  the  Persian  court,  and  lived 
there  happy  ever  after.  The  names  of  the  sultan,  prince, 
and  princess  are  omitted  in  the  legend,  and  are  unchroni- 
cled  by  history. 

The  authentic  history  of  the  island  does  begin  with  a  true 
tale  of  love,  though  one  having  a  sadder  ending.  Chares, 
Admiral  of  the  Athenian  fleet,  which  sailed  to  assist  By- 
zantium against  the  Macedonian  Philip,  was  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  Damalis.  On  arrival  here,  she  sickened  and 
died.  Chares,  less  happy  than  the  Persian  lover,  could 
summon  her  back  with  no  kisses,  however  ardent.  On 
this  island  he  reared  her  stately  mausoleum.  In  the  mar- 
ble image  of  a  cow,  placed  on  a  shaft  above  the  Athenian 
lady's  tomb,  and  also  in  the  grotesque  punning  of  her  epi- 
taph, almost  impossible  of  translation,  is  indicated,  in  a 
manner  common  to  the  ancients,  that  the  word  "  damalis  " 
is  both  a  woman's  name  and  the  Greek  for  cow.  u  I  am 
not  the  image  of  Io,  neither  from  me  does  the  opposite 
Bosphoric  Sea  derive  its  name.  Her  the  heavy  wrath  of 
Hera  persecuted  of  old.  This  is  my  monument.  I  the 
dead  am  an  Athenian  woman.  I  was  the  consort  of 
Chares  when  he  sailed  hither  to  contend  against  the  ships 
of  Philip.  I  then  might  be  called  Damalis,  but  now  the 
consort  of  Chares ;  and  I  enjoy  the  sight  of  both  conti- 
nents." Athens  itself  could  have  given  her  sailor's  wife 
no  sepulchre  more  magnificent  than  this.  Every  vestige 
of  the  monument  disappeared  apparently  before  the  Chris- 
tian era ;  but  for  centuries  afterwards  the  island  rock  and 
the  nearest  point  on  the  mainland  were  called  by  the 
name  of  Damalis. 


2  5  2  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Across  the  island  from  Chrysopolis  to  the  Tower  of 
Mangana  on  Seraglio  Point  stretched  the  chain  which  in 
case  of  need  closed  the  Bosphorus.  Upon  the  island 
partly  rested  the  temporary  bridge,  over  which  Heraklios 
and  his  victorious  army  returned  from  Persia.  It  was 
connected  with  the  mainland  by  a  mole,  half-sunken 
blocks  of  which  are  still  seen.  Various  fortresses,  always 
strong,  though  of  small  proportions,  were  constructed  upon 
it  by  the  Byzantine  emperors.  In  the  one  last  erected, 
Dr  Xeale,  in  his  romance  of  "  Theodora  Phranza,"  lays 
the  dramatic  scene  of  the  conspiracy  when,  at  the  supreme 
crisis  of  1453,  he  imagines  some  of  the  foremost  citizens 
plotting  the  fall  of  the  capital.  That  fortress  was  de- 
stroyed by  Mohammed  II,  and  one  after  another  has  been 
built  and  demolished  since.  The  present  structure  is  the 
work  of  Mahmoud  II.  This  is  often  called  Leander's 
Tower  by  Europeans,  who  thus  by  a  strange  blunder  of 
locality  transfer  to  the  Bosphorus  a  familiar  legend  of  the 
Hellespont.  It  served  as  a  plague  hospital  in  1836,  where 
pure  breezes  were  thought  to  accomplish  many  a  cure.  It 
is  now  employed  only  as  a  lighthouse ;  the  island  in  its  old 
days,  whether  site  of  mausoleum  or  of  maiden's  bower, 
was  never  devoted  to  a  nobler  purpose.  The  novelist, 
Jules  Verne,  caps  the  climax  of  an  impossible  story  by 
wheeling  his  hero,  Keraban  lTntlexible,  from  Scutari  to 
Stamboul  upon  a  rope,  suspended  from  the  top  of  the 
Maiden's  Tower  to  the  mainland  on  either  side. 

The  great  plain  of  Ha'idar  Pasha  lies  in  the  southern 
outskirts  of  Scutari,  bounded  by  the  solemn  cypresses  of 
the  Mussulman  cemetery.  It  is  now  traversed  by  the 
Anatolian  Railway,  which  passes  close  to  the  classic  Foun- 
tain of  Hermagoras,  and  the  station  and  terminus  of  which 
are  a  little  farther  north.     Here  every  Ottoman  army  as- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  2~)3 

sembled  before  undertaking  an  expedition  to  the  East. 
Here  Conrad  III,  with  his  German  host  of  the  Second 
Crusade,  encamped  in  1147,  just  as  Walter  the  Penniless 
and  Peter  the  Hermit  and  Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  with  their 
various  detachments,  had  done  fifty  years  before.  The 
wit  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  "  Count  Robert  of  Paris,"  be- 
gins from  Ha'iclar  Pasha  the  ludicrous  but  chivalric  back- 
ward march  of  Tancred  and  his  volunteers,  to  insure  fair 
fight  to  the  Lady  Brenhilda. 

The  exquisite  Bay  of  Ha'idar  Pasha  is  sometimes  con- 
sidered the  southern  limit  of  the  Bosphorus.  Formerly  it 
bore,  the  name  of  Rufinus,  the  all-powerful  Prefect  of  the 
East  under  Theodosius  the  Great  and  Arcadius.  On  its 
banks  he  erected  a  magnificent  summer  palace.  The  pla- 
teau which  rises  steeply  above  the  bay  is  dear  to  the 
hearts  of  Englishmen.  It  was  given  by  the  Ottoman 
Government  to  Great  Britain  as  a  burial-place  of  British 
soldiers  and  seamen  who  died  in  the  Crimean  War.  No 
cemetery  was  ever  planted  on  a  more  superb  and  glorious 
spot.  Before  it  spreads  Stamboul,  the  Marmora,  and  the 
Asiatic  islands  and  mountain-peaks.  Numerous  monu- 
ments of  naval  and  military  officers  line  the  front.  Under 
great  swelling  mounds  in  vast  pits  are  interred  more  than 
eight  thousand  nameless  British  dead.  It  is  a  melancholy 
fact  that  lack  of  food  and  clothing,  and  inefficiency  of 
administration,  did  more  to  pile  up  those  heaps  than  did 
the  battle-field  or  natural  disease.  Towards  the  centre 
rises  the  huge,  commemorative  granite  shaft,  designed  by 
Baron  Marocheti.  A  colossal  angel,  with  drooping  wings 
and  pen  in  hand,  is  represented  at  each  corner.  On  the 
sides  of  the  monument  are  scrolls,  bearing  memorial  in- 
scriptions in  English,  French,  Italian,  and  Turkish,  —  the 
languages   of    the   four   nations   which   combined    against 


254 


COX  ST  A  XTIXOPLE 


Russia  in  1854.  The  place  lias  become  the  principal 
burying-ground  of  the  resident  British  community.  Its 
natural  beauty  is  enhanced  by  all  that  affection,  united 
with  taste  and  opulence,  can  suggest  to  render  still  more 
wonderful  in  its  loveliness  this  earthly  paradise  of  the 
dead. 


Bkitish  Cemetery  at  Scutari  axd  Hospital  of  Florence 
Nightingale 


The  square  yellow  building  in  the  rear,  shut  off  by  a 
high  stone  wall,  awakens  memories  that  are  a  nation's 
pride.  It  is  associated  with  a  woman's  name,  —  a  syno- 
nym  of  heroism  and  tenderness.  —  a  name  more  widely 
known,  and  doubtless  to  be  longer  cherished  in  human 
hearts  than  that  of  any  titled  officer  of  that  wasted  war. 
That  building  was  set  apart  as  a  hospital  for  the  British 
wounded  and  diseased.  In  it,  by  her  womanly  self-sacri- 
fice, her  sympathetic  labor,  and  her  strong  common-sense, 


THE  BOSPHOEUS  255 

Florence  Nightingale  awoke  the  admiration,  and  received 
•the  gratitude,  not  only  of  the  suffering  and  the  dying,  but 
of  the  reverent  world. 

"Lo!   in  that  house  of  misery 
A  lady  with  a  lamp  I  see 
Pass  through  the  glimmering  gloom, 
And  liit  from  room  to  room. 

"  And  slow,  as  in  a  dream  of  bliss, 
The  speechless  sufferer  turns  to  kiss 
Her  shadow,  as  it  falls 
Upon  the  darkening  walls. 

"On  England's  annals,  through  the  long 
Hereafter  of  her  speech  and  song, 
That  light  its  rays  shall  cast 
From  portals  of  the  past. 

"A  lady  with  a  lamp  shall  stand 
In  the  great  history  of  the  land, 
A  noble  type  of  good, 
Heroic  womanhood. 

"Nor  even  shall  be  wanting  here 
The  palm,  the  lily,  and  the  spear, 
The  symbols  that  of  yore 
Saint  Filomena  bore." 


KADIKEUI,    CHALKEDON 

Farther  south  than  Haidar  Pasha,  with  conflicting 
claims  to  be  reckoned  the  farthest  quarter  of  the  Bos- 
phorus  and  the  nearest  on  the  Marmora,  is  Kadikeui,  the 
ancient  Chalkedon.  It  was  founded  685  b.  c.  by  a  colony 
from  Megaris,  who  called  their  infant  city,  from  its  situa- 
tion, Prokerastis,  or  the  Horn-shaped  Promontory.     This 


256  CONSTANTINOPLE 

first  name  was  soon  superseded  by  Chalkedon,  for  the 
origin  of  which  many  fanciful  explanations  are  given. 
Perhaps  it  came  from  the  neighboring  stream  Khalketis ; 
perhaps  from  Khalkedon.  the  mythical  son  of  the  mythical 
Kronos;  perhaps  from  Chalkas,  the  priest  of  Apollo. 

One  early  tradition  has  clung  more  tenaciously,  and  is 
more  often  repeated,  than  any  other  event  in  its  history. 
When  a  few  years  after  its  foundation  another  Megarian 
colony  sought  from  the  Delphic  oracle  direction  as  to  the 
site  of  their  proposed  city,  the  reply  was  given  with  in- 
spired ambiguity  that  they  should  build  it  opposite  the 
City  of  the  Blind.  Answered,  but  no  wiser  than  before, 
the  colonists  sailed  eastward  through  the  iEgean  and  the 
Marmora  on  an  uncertain  course.  When  at  last  that 
superb  site,  then  still  unoccupied,  between  the  Marmora, 
the  Bosphorus,  and  the  Golden  Horn,  was  revealed  to 
their  admiring  eyes,  they  comprehended  the  meaning  of 
the  oracle.  Colonists  who,  when  having  such  a  site  to 
choose,  had  settled  at  Chalkedon,  deserved  that  their  city 
should  be  stigmatized  forever  as  the  City  of  the  Blind. 

An  oracle  was  not  long  afterwards  founded  at  Chalke- 
don, which  in  time  became  of  little  less  repute  than  those 
of  Delphi  and  Dodona. 

The  city  was  conquered  by  the  Persians  during  their 
march  512  b.  c,  but  was  liberated  after  the  battle  of 
Platsea,  when  it  became  the  unwilling  ally  of  Athens. 
Throwing  off  the  Athenian  yoke,  it  took  sides  with  Sparta 
during  the  Peloponnesian  War.  Unlike  Byzantium,  it 
submitted  to  Philip  of  Macedon.  Meanwhile,  it  was  the 
birthplace  of  Xenocrates  the  philosopher,  and  of  Thrasy- 
machos  the  sophist,  both  of  whom  were  disciples  of  Plato. 
It  was  fought  over  by  Antiochus  the  Great,  and  by  the 
kings  of  Bithynia.     Bequeathed  to  the  Romans  by  its  last 


THE  BOSPHORUS  207 

possessor,  Nicomedes  III,  it  shortly  after  saw  the  Roman 
Consul  Cotta  defeated  beneath  its  walls,  and  was  held  for 
a  time  by  Mithridates  the  Great,  King  of  Pontus.  Pom- 
pey  made  it  a  free  city  and  ally  of  Rome.  For  a  time  it 
enjoyed  prosperity  and  peace.  Its  wealth  enormously  in- 
creased. Sixty  war-ships  could  anchor  in  its  artificial  har- 
bor, which  was  formed  by  two  prodigious  moles,  the  outer 
ends  of  which  at  need  could  be  connected  by  a  chain. 

A  crushing  blow  was  dealt  by  the  Goths  in  267  when 
the  city  was  sacked  and  the  harbor  filled  up  and  destroyed. 
Just  a  hundred  years  later  Valens,  enraged  that  it  had 
embraced  the  cause  of  his  rival  Procopius,  demolished  its 
walls,  removing  the  finest  blocks  to  Constantinople,  and 
building  them  into  his  aqueduct.  Since  then  the  fortunes 
of  the  City  of  the  Blind  have  been  dependent  upon  those 
of  its  old  rival,  the  crowned  and  imperial  Byzantium. 

Its  ecclesiastical  history  has  largely  centred  in  its 
Church  of  Saint  Euphemia,  first  erected  by  Probos,  Bishop 
of  Byzantium,  with  the  materials  and  on  the  site  of  a 
temple  of  Aphrodite.  The  church  possessed  the  right  of 
asylum,  and  any  endangered  or  persecuted  person  who 
entered  its  narthex  was  safe.  In  this  church  Michael 
III,  the  imperial  charioteer,  the  dethroned  heir  of  the 
dreaded  Isaurian  dynasty,  found  a  tardy  tomb,  his  de- 
spised remains  being  refused  burial  on  the  other  side  of 
the  strait. 

In  it  convened  the  Fourth  Ecumenical  or  General 
Council,  consisting  of  six  hundred  and  thirty  bishops  and 
elders,  in  451.  This  council  asserted  the  twofold  nature 
of  Christ,  condemned  the  heresy  of  the  monk  Eutyches, 
who  held  that  Christ  was  altogether  and  only  divine,  and 
gave  the  Nicene  Creed  its  present  form  as  accepted  by  the 
Greek  and  by  many  Protestant  churches.     The  Assembly 


258  CONSTANTINOPLE 

recognized  the  five  Patriarchates  of  Rome,  Constantinople, 
Jerusalem,  Antioeh,  and  Alexandria,  asserted  the  ecclesi- 
astical equality  of  the  two  capitals  of  the  Roman  world, 
but  conferred  an  honorary  precedence  upon  the  bishop  of 
the  older  city. 

In  Chalkedori  the  Patriarch  John  I.  familiar  to  history 
as  Saint  John  Chrysostom,  was  condemned,  deposed,  and 
ordered  into  exile  at  the  infamous  Synod  of  the  Oak. 

For  ten  years  (616-626)  Chalkedon  was  held  by  the 
forces  of  the  Persian  Shah.  Khosroes  II.  Unable  to 
capture  the  place  by  storm  or  siege,  his  soldiers  had  dug  a 
mine  nearly  half  a  mile  in  length  from  their  camp  to 
directly  beneath  the  public  square.  The  thick  roots  of 
the  numerous  plane-trees,  wedged  together,  showed  the 
diggers  that  they  had  reached  the  exact  spot.  At 
night  they  emerged  from  the  ground  and  overpowered 
the  inhabitants. 

The  name  Kadikeui,  the  Village  of  the  Judge,  com- 
memorates the  Kadi  or  Mussulman  Judge,  always  cited  by 
the  Ottomans  under  his  full  appellation  of  Mohammed 
Ben  Phirmouz  Ben  Ali  Effendi,  who  erected  the  first 
mosque  after  Chalkedon  submitted  to  the  Mussulmans. 
The  Church  of  Saint  Euphemia  was  destro}~ed  by  Soule'i- 
man  the  Magnificent,  who  employed  its  blocks  and 
columns  and  a  portion  of  the  mediaeval  city  wall  in  the 
construction  of  his  imperial  mosque. 

The  description  of  Tournefort,  who  said  of  Kadikeui  in 
1701,  "It  is  to-day  a  wretched  village  of  seven  or  eight 
hundred  fires  called  Cadiaci,"  or  of  Lechevalier.  who  a 
hundred  years  ago  describes  it  as  a  "miserable  village," 
no  longer  applies.  Though  fearfully  ravaged  by  fire  in 
1860  and  1883,  it  is  growing  rapidly.  Houses,  constantly 
rising  everywhere,  give  it  something  of  a  western  appear- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  259 

ance.  It  is  well  provided  with  churches  and  schools. 
The  modern  Greek  Church  of  Saint  Euphemia  is  about  a 
third  of  a  mile  distant  from  the  former  sanctuary,  and,  by 
the  reverent  care  of  the  Greeks,  is  mainly  built  from  such 
of  its  remains  as  were  not  utilized  by  Sultan  Soule'iman. 

Kadikeui  is  endowed  with  many  charms  of  situation 
and  landscape.  Yet  it  occupies  one  of  the  least  desirable 
localities  of  the  capital.  It  is  parched  and  dry  in  summer, 
and  at  every  season  exposed,  unprotected,  to  the  south 
wind,  the  torturing  disagreeableness  of  which,  as  it  sweeps 
from  the  Marmora,  can  hardly  be  described. 

A  delightful  driveway  along  the  bluff  conducts  to  the 
exquisite  bay  of  Moda  on  the  south.  Until  the  coining  of 
the  Ottomans,  the  tiny  harbor  was  called  the  Port  of 
Eutropius.  On  a  crag  above  the  shore  that  haughty  and 
supple  eunuch,  chief  minister  to  the  Emperor  Arcadius, 
had  built  a  palace  which  in  luxury  and  ostentation  sur- 
passed the  imperial  residences  of  the  capital.  Under  its 
majestic  portal  he  was  put  to  death.  His  sudden  fall  and 
pitiable  flight  to  the  Church  of  Sancta  Sophia  inspired 
Chrysostom  with  his  memorable  discourse  on  the  vanity 
of  power,  and  the  historian  Gibbon  with  one  of  his  most 
dramatic  passages. 

On  the  shore,  the  virtuous  Emperor  Maurice  and  his 
five  sons  were  beheaded  by  order  of  the  tyrant  Phokas. 
Covered  with  the  blood  of  his  children,  which  by  inhuman 
cruelty  was  made  to  spurt  upon  him,  Maurice  repeated  at 
each  blow  of  the  ax,  "  Thou  art  just,  0  Lord,  and  Thy 
judgments  are  right."  Then  the  six  headless  bodies  were; 
thrown  for  final  burial  into  the  waters  of  Moda ;  but  the 
waves,  as  if  indignant,  constantly  cast  them  back  upon  the 
sand,  and  the  unwilling  executioners  had  to  carry  them 
away.     Five  years  later  the  same  vile  tyrant  in  the  same 


260  CON  ST  A  NTINOPLE 

manner  on  the  same  spot  beheaded  Constantia,  the  wife  of 
Maurice,  and  her  three  daughters,  Anastasia,  Theokthiste, 
and  Cleopatra.  As  one  gazes  now  at  the  calm,  landward 
ripple  of  the  bay  over  its  pearly  bottom,  it  is  hard  to 
realize  that  its  pure  waters  were  ever  reddened  by  such 
horrors.  Their  sufferings  as  well  as  their  virtues  hal- 
lowed the  memory  of  the  princesses,  and  they  are  inscribed 
on  the  calendars  of  both  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches  as 
saints. 

Beyond  the  bay  widens  a  beautiful  valley,  whose  exist- 
ence is  attributed  by  legend  to  a  miracle.  The  galley, 
bearing  the  remains  of  Saint  Chrysostom  from  the  distant 
scene  of  his  exile  and  death,  on  its  arrival  was  forced  by 
a  powerful  wind  away  from  Byzantium  and  up  the 
bay  of  Moda.  Shipwreck  was  certain,  when  the  hillside, 
reverent  to  the  sacred  freight  the  vessel  bore,  opened 
inland,  and  assured  a  safe  retreat. 

Only  one  promontory  more  can,  by  the  utmost  stretch 
of  imagination,  be  considered  as  making  part  of  the  shores 
of  the  Bosphorus.  This  is  Phanar  Bournou,  or  Phanar 
Baghtcheh,  the  Cape  or  Garden  of  the  Lighthouse,  a  rock- 
ribbed,  pine-shaded  peninsula,  almost  deserted  by  human 
habitations,  but  thronged  by  pleasure-seekers  on  the  bright 
days  of  the  year.  It  is  the  ancient  Heraion,  so  called 
from  the  Temple  of  Hera,  which  stood  on  the  outer,  still- 
seen  boulders  amid  the  waves.  Hither  often  came  Jus- 
tinian and  Theodora  to  a  palace  which  they  had  erected 
together.  Over  its  main  entrance  was  the  inscription, 
"Upon  this  famous  spot  Justinian  and  Theodora  have 
built,  thus  adding  further  beauty  to  sea  and  land."  In 
this  palace  in  754  Constantine  V  Kopronymos  held  several 
sessions  of  his  iconoclastic  council,  which  three  hundred 
and    thirty-three    bishops    attended.      In    the    ninth    and 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


261 


tenth  centuries  it  was  successively  rebuilt  by  Basil  I  and 
Constantine  IX. 

Justinian  had  also  constructed  an  artificial  harbor, 
embraced  between  two  lengthy  piers.  On  the  promontory 
he  dedicated  three  churches,  —  one  to  the  Holy  Virgin,  one 


Phaxar  Bournou 


to  the  Prophet  Elijah,  and  one  to  the  Martyr  Prokopios. 
Further,  he  laid  out  a  Forum,  and  on  its  portico  placed 
these  words  :  "  0  kings,  as  long  as  the  pole  shall  draw  the 
stars,  time  shall  forever  repeat  the  story  of  our  virtue, 
our  might,  and  our  achievements."  Temple  of  Hera, 
palace,  churches,  Forum  of  Justinian,  later  Kiosk  of  Sou- 
lehnan   II,  —  all  are  gone.      Only  the  black  and  foaming 


262  CONSTANTINOPLE 

rocks  of  the  broken  piers  hint  the  former  imperial  mag- 
nificence and  the  exalted  visitors  of  this  point,  where 
almost  all  the  ancient  and  many  modern  geographers 
reckon  that  the  Bosphorus  begins. 

One  hour's  distance  from  Scutari,  directly  east,  is  the 
hill  of  Boulgourlou  with  its  double  peak.  Though  its 
base  is  not  washed  by  the  waters  of  the  strait,  as  is  the 
solitary  Giant's  Mountain,  of  which  it  seems  the  southern 
counterpart,  yet  it  belongs  to  the  Bosphorus  by  every 
association,  and  constitutes  one  of  the  natural  glories  of 
its  shores.  Eight  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  height,  it  is 
the  loftiest  eminence  in  the  vicinity  of  the  capital. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  its  summit  was  the  imperial 
bulletin-board,  scanned  with  breathless  interest  by  the 
Byzantines  in  time  of  excitement  and  war.  It  was  the 
last  of  the  eight  stations  which  answered  to  one  another 
across  Asia  Minor,  and,  by  an  established  code  of  inge- 
niously contrived  signal-fires,  could  flash  out  a  whole  nar- 
ration in  its  blaze.  The  history  of  the  Byzantine  Empire 
through  hundreds  of  years,  its  victories,  its  disasters,  the 
fall  and  rise  of  its  dynasties,  the  gain  and  loss  of  its  prov- 
inces, the  early  conquests  of  Islam,  the  march  of  the 
Crusaders,  were  written  here  in  blazing  characters  upon 
the  sky.  The  ignoble  Michael  III  forbade  the  lighting  of 
these  fires  during  his  reign,  so  that  no  tidings,  either  good 
or  bad,  should  divert  the  people's  attention  from  his 
prowess  as  a  charioteer. 

The  sides  of  the  hill  were  studded  with  gardens  and 
villas,  and  its  summit  was  crowned  as  now  with  a  grove 
of  thujas  and  oaks.  There  the  Emperors  Tiberios  and 
Maurice  built  the  Palace  of  Damatrys  ;  the  forest  planted 
by  Constantine  VII  clad  the  slopes.  Somewhere  near  was 
the  Monastery  of  the  Assumption,  to  which  on  Assump- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  263 

tion  Day  the  whole  population  of  the  capital  were  accus- 
tomed to  resort  and  celebrate  the  festival. 

Isolated  on  the  outmost  verge  was  the  Lepers'  Hospital, 
founded  by  the  great-hearted  patrician  Zotikos,  whose 
munificence  and  generosity  caused  him  to  be  commonly 
called  the  "  Father  of  Orphans."  To  this  asylum  John  I 
Zimiskes  consecrated  one-half  his  private  fortune.  When 
it  was  destroyed  by  earthquake,  Romanos  III  rebuilt  it 
with  lavish  expenditure. 

The  road  to  Boulgourlou  from  Scutari  passes  through 
a  rich  and  fertile  region,  among  the  most  luxuriant  vine- 
yards of  the  capital,  and  near  ornate  and  elegant  kiosks. 
In  one  of  these  summer  palaces,  on  June  30,  1839,  the 
stormy  life  of  Mahmoud  II,  the  Great,  the  Reformer, 
came  to  its  close.  The  attendants,  alarmed  in  the  morning 
at  not  hearing  their  master's  call,  penetrated  to  his  cham- 
ber with  fear  and  trembling,  and  found  him  dead.  He 
lay  as  if  asleep.  Almost  the  only  peaceful  event  in  his 
reign  of  one  and  thirty  years  was  his  calm  departure 
from  it. 

The  road  ends  at  a  plateau,  refreshing  even  from  a  dis- 
tance with  its  royal  sycamores.  Beneath  their  shade 
bubbles  a  fountain,  the  crystal  draughts  from  which  are 
regarded  by  the  Ottomans  —  connoisseurs  of  water  as  other 
nations  are  of  wine  —  as  more  delicious  than  those  from 
any  other  spring  in  the  capital.  The  prolix  Dervish  Hafiz, 
in  a  curious  treatise  on  the  "  Fountains  of  Paradise,"  com- 
pares seventeen  famous  sources,  applies  to  them  the  eight 
tests,  and  concludes  that  in  every  respect  the  water  of  this 
fountain  is  the  best  of  all. 

From  the  plateau  one  climbs  to  the  top  on  foot,  there 
to  revel  in  an  intoxication  of  view,  "  the  beauty  of  which," 
the  clumsy  and  phlegmatic  Pococke  exclaims,  "cannot  be 


^61  CONSTANTINOPLE 

conceived."  It  is  the  vastest,  the  most  comprehensive 
and  extended,  the  most  spectacular,  which  any  point  along 
the  Bosphorus  affords.  He  who  has  never  seen  it  has 
missed  the  most  marvellous  scene  on  earth.  He  whose 
eyes  have  gazed  forth  upon  its  complete  magnificence 
queries  afterwards  whether  it  was  not  all  a  dream. 

"  The  European  with  the  Asian  shore, 

Sprinkled  with  palaces;   the  ocean  stream, 
Here  and  there  studded  with  a  seventy-four  ; 
Sophia's  cupola  with  golden  gleam, 
The  cypress  groves,  Olympus  high  and  hoar, 
The  twelve  isles  and  the  more  than  I  can  dream. 
Far  less  describe.'"' 


THE   PRINCES'   ISLANDS 

Nature,  insatiable  in  giving,  has  diversified  the  capital 
not  only  with  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Golden  Horn,  but 
with  the  tiny  archipelago  of  the  Princes'  Islands.  More 
than  Ischia  and  Capri  are  to  Naples,  are  Khalki,  Prinkipo, 
and  their  sister  islands  to  Constantinople.  They  are  far 
less  remote  from  the  municipal  centre,  and  form  an  inte- 
gral part  of  the  city.  The  nearest  is  but  four  miles  dis- 
tant from  Kadikeui,  and  only  little  farther  from  Stamboul. 

They  were  anciently  called  Demonesoi,  from  a  legendary, 
or  historic,  Demonesos,  who  worked  in  their  stone  and 
metal.  The  mediaeval  name,  Papadanesoi,  the  Islands  of 
the  Priests,  and  the  modern  name,  Princes'  Islands,  through 
the  irony  of  history,  have  a  common  meaning  and  associa- 
tion. During  the  Byzantine  Middle  Ages,  the  monastery 
was  not  far  distant  from  the  throne.  He  who,  in  the 
evening,  wore  the  imperial  golden  circlet  upon  his  long 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


265 


and  plaited  locks  might  on  the  morrow,  with  shaven  head, 
become  the  unwilling  inmate  of  a  monastic  cell.  In  those 
days,  the  islands  were  seldom  sought  for  pleasure,  but 
were  abandoned  to  monasteries  and  monks.  Hither  many 
a  deposed  sovereign  was  exiled,  whom,  stripped  of  all  that 
made  life  desirable,  the  disdain  or  humanity  of  his  succes- 
sor permitted  to  live.     Not  one  of  all  the  discarded  em- 


The  Princes'  Islands 


perors  imprisoned  here,  with  cowl  and  cloak,  ever  went 
back  to  his  throne.  Though  almost  all  the  monasteries 
have  crumbled,  and  only  a  few  inmates  wander  over  the 
grass-grown  paths,  the  tradition  of  deposed  princes  has 
survived  and  bestowed  upon  the  islands  their  present 
name. 

They  are  nine  in  number.  Two,  Pita  and  Neandros, 
are  destitute  of  inhabitant  or  interest.  Three,  Oxeia, 
Platij  and  Antirovithos,  are  isolated  from  the  present,  but 


26G  CONSTANTINOPLE 

have  each  their  history  of  failure  and  sorrow.  Four, 
Proti,  Antigone,  Khalki,  and  Prinkipo,  are  the  chief. 
They  are  hi  daily  steam  communication  with  one  another 
and  with  the  other  quarters  of  the  capital.  The  mildness 
and  regularity  of  their  climate  render  them  the  healthiest 
locality  in  the  Empire.  Nowhere  else  along  the  northern 
Marmora  does  the  olive-tree  grow  with  such  profusion,  or 
yield  more  generous  results.  Nothing  more  ideal  can  be 
pictured  than  the  loveliness  of  these  islands  in  May  and 
June.  The  hills  are  covered  with  pine  forests,  and  the 
meandering  shores  are  indented  with  shaded  and  seques- 
tered hays.  Wherever  the  gaze  is  turned,  beauty  confronts 
the  eye.  Yet  in  winter  they  are  almost  deserted.  The 
treacherous  Marmora  suddenly  and  often  cuts  off  all  com- 
munication with  the  outer  world.  Then,  though  at  sunset 
the  shadow  of  Stamboul  seems  to  fall  upon  them,  they 
are  practically  many  leagues  away. 

Scattered  in  the  sea  southeast  of  the  Bosphorus.  their 
rounded  forms  present  a  vision  of  delight.  Looked  upon 
from  the  west,  the  four  chief  islands  lie  spread  upon  the 
horizon  as  if  blent  in  one.  Still  nearer  on  the  right, 
Oxeia  the  Lofty  lifts  its  towering,  cone-like  rock ;  while 
Plati  the  Flat  emerges  little  above  the  surface  of  the 
water. 

Oxeia  has  for  sole  inhabitants  innumerable  flocks  of 
white  and  dusky  sea-birds.  A  few  shapeless  remains  are 
left  of  the  once  venerated  Church  of  Saint  Michael,  "  su- 
preme chief  of  heavenly  hosts,"  and  of  the  immense  or- 
phan asylum. 

Plati  was  formerly  a  great  rock  prison.  The  gaping 
mouths  of  its  subterranean  dungeons  and  oubliettes  may 
still  be  seen.  No  place  of  exile  was  more  abhorred  by  the 
Byzantines,  at  once  so  near  the  capital,  but,  to  the  pris- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  267 

oner,  so  far.  In  the  eleventh  century,  the  patrician  Bar- 
das  and  the  Bulgarian  general  Prousianos  fought  a  duel. 
Such  method  of  adjusting  a  private  quarrel  was  unknown 
to  the  East.  Though  this  combat  was  bloodless,  it  roused 
an  intense  excitement  in  Church  and  State.  Bardas  was 
exiled  to  Oxeia,  and  Prousianos  to  Plati,  where  the  late 
antagonists  could  hurl  a  harmless  defiance  at  each  other 
across  the  waves.  Then  the  eyes  of  Bardas  were  put  out, 
and  like  punishment  was  ordered  against  Prousianos,  when 
the  latter,  almost  by  a  miracle,  escaped. 

A  certain  notoriety  was  conferred  on  Plati  by  the  quix- 
otic structure  which  Sir  Henry  Bulwer  erected  there 
while  British  ambassador  to  the  Porte.  It  was  a  sort 
of  castle  with  towers  and  battlements,  an  architectural 
imitation  of  the  Middle  Ages,  yet,  despite  its  defiant  air, 
designed  mainly  as  a  retreat  for  pleasure.  To  this  day, 
among  the  common  people,  pungent  stories  are  current  of 
the  peculiar  guests,  not  always  grave  or  decorous,  whom 
the  titled  proprietor  gathered  around  his  board.  In  his 
eventful  career,  that  well-known  diplomat  scored  many  a 
victory.  The  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  between  Great  Brit- 
ain and  the  United  States  is  one  which  Americans  may 
well  remember.  But  he  never  achieved  a  more  remark- 
able financial  success  than  when  he  sold  his  castle,  a  dis- 
carded, worn-out  plaything,  to  the  Viceroy  of  Egypt,  for  an 
enormous  price.  The  watch-towers  of  the  north  and  east 
were  recently  destroyed  in  the  hope  of  finding  treasure. 
The  costly  structure  is  now  fast  falling  in  ruin. 

Proti,  the  First,  or  Nearest,  consists  of  two  prolonged 
and  lofty  mounds.  A  belt  of  trees  spans  the  hollow.  No 
water-springs  refresh  its  bare  and  arid  surface.  Stunted 
shrubbery  and  a  few  straggling  houses  cling  like  moss 
along  the  slopes.     Its  very  appearance  is  suggestive  of  the 


268  CONSTANTINOPLE 

sorrows  and  tragedies  it  has  seen,  all  accomplished  within 
the  walls  of  three  monasteries  between  which  the  island 
was  shared. 

Shapeless  remains  on  the  north  identify  the  site  of  the 
Monastery  of  the  Holy  Virgin.  To  it  were  sent,  in  813, 
the  deposed  Emperor,  Michael  I  Rhangabe,  and  his  two 
sons,  Theophylaktos  and  Niketas.  Unwilling  to  shed 
the  blood  of  his  subjects  in  civil  war,  and  glad  to  resign 
his  throne,  the  Emperor  had  refused  to  resist  by  arms 
the  rebel,  Leo  V,  the  Armenian.  The  entreaties  of  his 
wife,  Prokopia,  and  of  his  ardent  partisans  were  alike 
powerless.  He  sent  the  insignia  of  empire  to  his  rival, 
and  calmly  awaited  his  lot. 

From  the  new  sovereign  the  stern  order  came  that  Pro- 
kopia  and  her  two  daughters,  Gorgo  and  Theophano,  should 
become  nuns  in  the  convent  of  Saint  Prokopia,  which 
she  herself  had  founded  on  the  Bosphorus,  while  Michael 
and  his  sons  were  to  withdraw  to  Proti.  There,  as  the 
monk  Anastasios,  he  lived  twenty-seven  years.  From  the 
window  of  his  cell,  he  saw  daily  in  the  distance  the  gilded 
Great  Palace,  where  he  once  had  reigned  ;  but  it  woke 
no  regretful  longings  in  his  breast.  Emperor  succeeded 
emperor  during  those  almost  thirty  years,  but  happier  than 
they  all  was  he  who  had  resigned  his  crown  on  earth  and 
sought  only  a  crown  in  heaven.  His  elder  son,  become 
the  monk  Eustathios,  survived  him  five  years  ;  the  younger, 
as  the  monk  Ignatios,  was  summoned,  in  846,  to  occupy 
the  Patriarchal  See,  and  is  deservedly  esteemed  one  of  the 
most  learned  and  most  saintly  prelates  of  the  East. 

A  century  later  a  less  willing  votary  entered  the  mon- 
astery :  Romanos  I,  intrepid  soldier,  able  statesman,  shrewd 
diplomatist,  during  twenty-five  years  had  sat  as  associate 
upon  the  throne ;  he  had  crowned  his  three  sons  as  joint 


THE  BOSPHORUS  269 

emperors,  and  had  wedded  his  daughter  Helena  to  the 
legitimate  sovereign,  Constantine  VIII,  to  whom  he  had 
left  only  a  semblance  of  power.  One  night,  as  he  slept  on 
his  tiger-skin,  his  three  sons  rushed  upon  him  with  a  mer- 
cenary band.  They  bound  his  hands  and  feet,  wrapped 
around  him  a  roll  of  linen  cloth,  carried  the  strange  bundle 
through  the  palace  court,  and  despatched  it  to  this  monas- 
tery. Thirty-nine  days  later  the  partisans  of  their  sister 
and  of  the  rightful  monarch  sent  the  unnatural  sons  to 
share  their  father's  retreat.  With  sarcasm  their  father 
hailed  their  arrival,  congratulating  them  that  now,  their 
eyes  fixed  heavenward,  they  might  still  journey  on 
together.  Deposition  transformed  the  character  of  the 
haughty  Romanos.  He  might  have  served  as  the  proto- 
type of  Robert  of  Sicily  in  Longfellow's  "  Tales  of  a 
Wayside  Inn." 

The  Monastery  of  the  Transfiguration  stood  upon  the 
summit  of  the  island.  It  saw  the  agonizing  death  of  the 
knightly  Romanos  IV  Diogenes,  deserted  by  fortune  and 
by  all  his  oldtime  retainers,  but  cherished  to  the  last  by  his 
once  flippant,  though  always  devoted  wife,  the  Empress 
Eudoxia. 

To  this  monastery  was  conveyed  one  night  in  821  the 
entire  family  of  that  Leo  V  who  had  expelled  the 
Emperor  Michael.  It  was  as  ghastly  a  household  of  dead, 
mutilated,  and  living  as  ever  met  together.  A  leathern 
sack,  lying  at  the  Empress's  feet,  contained  the  headless 
remains  of  her  husband  Leo,  and  served  as  a  shroud  when 
a  few  moments  later  his  body  was  interred  in  the  garden 
of  the  monastery.  The  roughly  shaven  head  of  the 
Empress  Theodosia  testified  to  the  violence  with  which, 
in  the  euphemistic  language  of  the  Byzantines,  she  bad 
just    been    made    "a    citizeness    of   heaven,   wearing    the 


270  CONSTANTINOPLE 

raiment  of  the  angels/'  or,  in  other  words,  a  black-robed 

nun.  At  her  .side  cowered  her  four  grown-up  sons  in  the 
agony  of  a  just-performed  and  nameless  mutilation. 

The  site  of  the  third  monastery  is  lost,  but  not  the 
story  of  the  Armenian  general  Vartan,  its  founder.  He 
remains  one  of  the  grand  figures  of  the  ninth  century, 
that  age  of  Charlemagne  and  of  Haroun  al  Rashid.  The 
first  tactician  of  the  Empire,  adored  by  the  army  and 
people,  he  had  refused  to  aspire  to  the  crown  which  the 
nation  urged  upon  him.  By  the  orders  of  the  tyrant 
Nikephoros  his  eyes  were  dug  out,  and  the  sightless  Sam- 
son was  confined  in  the  monastery.  He  survived  his 
wounds  many  years,  devoted  all  his  little  remaining 
property  to  beneficence,  endured  all  manner  of  self-inflicted 
torture,  and  was  universally  revered  for  his  holy  life.  In 
this  same  convent  was  shut  up  the  Empress  Theophano, 
whose  softer  romance  fills  many  a  page  with  tales  of  love. 
Here  too  came  her  last  favorite,  the  general  Leo  Phokas, 
who  defeated  the  Russians. 

It  is  possible  that  the  modern  Monastery  of  the  Trans- 
figuration, now  dilapidated  and  almost  deserted,  is  situated 
somewhere  near  the  site  of  its  namesake  and  predecessor. 
The  sympathetic  Schlumberger,  who  there  wrote  part  of 
his  fascinating  book,  "  Les  lies  des  Princes,"  well  says, 
"  There  attaches  to  it  something  of  fallen  grandeur  and 
bygone  pomp,  which  inspires  respect,  and  evokes  memories 
of  other  days." 

Off  Proti  and  Oxeia  the  Genoese  in  13-52  defeated  the 
allied  Byzantines  and  Venetians  in  a  stubbornly  contested 
sea-fight.  In  the  same  waters  just  sixty  years  later,  the 
Byzantines  under  Manuel  Palaiologos  sunk  the  Ottoman 
fleet.  In  1807  Admiral  Duckworth  with  a  British  squad- 
ron attacked  the  island,  and  for  eight  clays  remained  in 


THE  BOSPHORUS  271 

its  harbor.  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  who  at  Acre  eight  years 
before  had  "made  Napoleon  miss  his  destiny,"  was  on 
board.  The  Monastery  of  the  Transfiguration,  where  the 
Ottomans  were  intrenched,  was  partially  destroyed  in 
the  attack,  but  the  British  were  repulsed.  Nevertheless,  the 
besieged  were  on  the  point  of  surrender  from  lack  of  pro- 
visions, when  they  were  rescued  by  boatmen  from  Khalki. 
In  the  harbor  the  British  seventy-four-gun  frigate  "  Ajax" 
took  fire  and  became  a  total  loss. 

The  next  island  was  originally  called  Panormos,  signify- 
ing that  it  was  easy  to  approach.  Its  present  name  is 
among  the  last  echoes  of  the  campaigns  of  Alexander. 
The  great  conqueror  came  no  nearer  than  the  Dardanelles, 
but  his  death  precipitated  a  scramble  for  kingdoms,  and 
his  soldiers  fought  one  another  through  Asia  Minor  and 
along  the  Marmora.  Demetrios,  son  of  Antigonos,  who 
was  Alexander's  ablest  general,  gained  a  victory  oh0  the 
island,  and  called  it  Antigone  in  honor  of  his  father. 

On  the  eastern  side  is  the  pleasant  modern  village. 
The  smallest  incident  is  of  moment  to  the  quiet  villagers. 
Before  the  arrival  of  the  daily  local  steamer,  it  is  amusing 
to  see  the  population  rushing  to  the  qnay,  and  then  as 
excitedly  wending  homewards  on  its  departure.  The  vast 
Monastery  of  the  Transfiguration,  which  was  built  in  the 
ninth  century  by  Basil  I,  and  which  covered  the  summit 
of  the  hill,  was  partially  restored  in  1869. 

The  colossal  memory  of  Methodios  dominates  all  other 
associations  of  Antigone.  He  was  the  central  figure  of  the 
iconoclastic  controversy.  It  is  impossible  to  realize  the  mad 
passion  and  fury  of  that  theologic  strife.  Though  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  even  in  America,  sectarian  fights  and 
trials  for  heresy  abound,  the  bitterest  of  them  all  are  tame 
and  lifeless  compared  with  the  envenomed  battles  men 


K'2  CONSTANTINOPLE 


waged  against  one  another  at  Constantinople  in  the  name 
of  Christianity.  The  iconoclastic  controversy  as  to 
whether  icons,  or  holy  pictures,  should  or  should  not  be 
used  in  worship,  had  raged  for  a  hundred  years.  During 
almost  all  that  period  the  weapons  of  Church  and  State 
had  been  wielded  on  the  iconoclastic  side. 

In  821,  Michael  II,  the  Stammerer,  became  emperor. 
Having  attained  the  throne  by  assassination  and  violence, 
he  was  naturally  fitted  for  the  role  of  bigot  and  persecutor. 
With  fanatic  ingenuity  he  devised  new  tortures  for  the 
adherents  of  the  icons.  Methodios  was  recognized  as  their 
most  learned  leader.  The  Emperor  ordered  that  he  should 
be  struck  gently  seven  hundred  times  with  a  whip.  The 
prolongation  of  the  punishment  was  the  refinement  of 
its  cruelty.  Then,  unconscious  and  apparently  lifeless, 
Methodios  was  thrown,  together  with  two  murderers,  into  a 
deep  pit  at  Antigone.  Bread  and  water  were  let  down 
daily  through  an  opening  above.  When  one  of  the  mur- 
derers died,  his  decomposing  body  was  left  in  the  pit  to 
render  the  horrid  hole  still  more  revolting.  Meanwhile 
Methodios  labored  day  and  night  to  convert  the  survivor. 
Michael  died  after  an  eight  years'  evil  reign,  and  his  son 
Theophilos  succeeded,  as  iconoclastic,  but  less  inhuman. 

Theophilos,  an  eager  student,  found  a  passage  in  an 
ancient  writer  which  neither  he  nor  any  of  the  wise  men 
at  his  court  could  explain.  The  ardor  of  the  scholar  over- 
came the  antipathy  of  the  fanatic,  and  Methodios  was 
sent  for  to  expound  the  passage.  Forthwith  lie  sought 
to  convert  his  imperial  pupil  to  the  cause  of  the  icons. 
Again  he  was  publicly  scourged,  and  then  cast  into  the 
lower  dungeon  of  the  Great  Palace.  His  gentleness  and 
piety  had  profoundly  impressed  Theophilos.  The  rage 
of    persecution    slackened.      Methodios,    though    no    less 


THE  BOSPHORUS  273 

active  and  persistent  in  his  advocacy,  became  the  Empe- 
ror's inseparable  companion. 

On  his  deathbed,  in  842,  Theophilos  enjoined  on  his 
wife  Theodora  the  necessity  of  peace  and  union  for  the 
long-distracted  Church.  Methodios,  surnamed  the  Con- 
fessor, because  of  his  sufferings  and  fidelity,  was  made 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople.  Christlike  in  triumph,  as 
he  had  been  Christlike  in  endurance,  he  protected  the 
vanquished  party,  and  declared  that  persecution  can  never 
advance  the  truth.  Four  years  later,  worn  out  and  pre- 
maturely old,  he  gave  back  his  soul  to  God.  No  saint  is 
more  revered  in  the  Eastern  Church.  His  coffin  was 
placed  beside  those  of  the  emperors  in  the  Church  of 
the  Holy  Apostles,  that  Pantheon  of  the  glories  of  the 
Empire. 

At  Antigone,  Theodora  erected  the  Church  of  Saint 
John  the  Baptist  over  the  cave  where  the  Confessor 
had  been  so  long  confined.  In  the  renovated  modern 
wooden  church,  still  the  chief  sanctuary  of  the  islanders, 
little  remains  of  the  early  edifice.  Nevertheless  the 
apse,  or  eastern  portion,  is  part  of  the  original  structure. 
Over  it  ended  the  last  throes  of  that  bitter  theologic 
agony.  Puerile  the  iconoclastic  question  seems  to-day 
when  compared  with  our  larger  and  more  human  prob- 
lems. Yet  it  was  vast  enough  to  develop  heroes  and 
martyrs  in  both  the  hostile  camps,  and  to  reveal  to 
a  luxurious  age  the  unconscious  sublimity  with  which 
men  and  women  can  die,  or  can  survive  and  suffer,  for 
an  idea. 

"  A  tale  of  the  shadowy  past 
Obscured  by  the  mists  of  the  years, 
Where,  down  all  the  distance,  one  hears 
Fanatical  echoes  of  strife. 
vol.  i.  — 18 


274  CONSTANTINOPLE 

"Oh,  why,  from  the  iir.st  to  the  last, 
Should  His  name,  that  the  spirit  reveres, 
Be  hlent  with  the  clashing  of  spears 
Where  frenzy  and  slaughter  are  rife." 

Pita,  the  Piny  Island,  is  a  barren  reef,  from  which  every 
pine-tree  long  ago  disappeared. 

Trimountainecl  Khalki  is  in  natural  beauty  and  attrac- 
tiveness the  gem  of  all  these  islands.  It  is  indented  on 
every  side  by  tiny  bays,  the  shores  of  which  are  every- 
where fringed  with  forests.  Romantic  paths  wind  aim- 
lessly in  every  direction,  and  at  each  turning  reveal  a  new 
surprise.  The  outlook  is  always  beautiful,  whether  one 
gazes  at  land  or  sea. 

The  name  Khalki,  Copper,  is  due  to  the  metal  in  which 
the  island  abounded.  Of  late  years  it  has  been  little 
worked.  From  it  was  made  the  celebrated  statue  of 
Apollo  at  Sicyon.  Heaps  of  scoria  and  the  half-filled 
excavations  of  ancient  mines  may  still  be  seen.  Near  the 
steamer  landing-place  are  the  neat,  well-kept  buildings  of 
the  Ottoman  Naval  School.  Still  nearer  on  the  right  is 
the  Greek  Church  of  Saint  Nicolas,  with  its  curious,  sev- 
eral-storied, many-windowed  belfry.  The  compact  village 
numbers,  perhaps,  six  thousand  souls. 

A  valley,  running  east  and  west,  divides  the  island,  and 
determines  the  direction  of  the  principal  street.  The 
houses  are  soon  left  behind,  and  one  enters  a  delicious 
forest  of  pines,  where  the  air  is  always  freighted  with  a 
healthful  fragrance,  and  the  ground  is  covered  with  a 
silken,  elastic  carpet. 

High  on  the  northern  summit  on  the  right  are  seen  the 
monastic  buildings  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  It  is  a  tradition 
that  the  convent  was  founded  in  the  ninth  century  by  the 
elocpient  and  restless  Patriarch  Photios.     Often  destroyed 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


275 


and  re-erected  by  turns,  it  was  at  last  rebuilt  by  the  Patri- 
arch Germanos  IV  in  1841,  who  established  in  it  the  most 
important  theological  seminary  of  the  Eastern  Church. 
Nearly  a  hundred  students  during  a  seven  years'  course 
are  there  trained  by  teachers  eminent  for  their  learning. 
The  spot  is  itself  an  inspiration.  Schlumberger  well  re- 
marks, "  Never  could  the  human  mind  conceive  a  solitude 
more  beautiful,  more  fit  to  elevate  the  soul."  The  build- 
ings spread  over  the  hilltop  like  a 
crown,  itself  surrounded  by  a  cir- 
clet of  cypresses  and  pines.  Ven- 
erable olive-trees  clothe  the  slope, 
each  built  up  with  a  careful  ter- 
race to  prevent  torrential  rains 
from  washing  it  away.  The 
earthquake  of  July,  1894,  brought 
havoc  and  desolation  to  the  semi- 
nary, but  no  lives  were  lost.  The 
active  affection  of  the  Greeks  has 
already  raised  anew  whatever  was 
shattered  or  thrown  down. 

The  street,  abandoned  during 
the  ascent  to  Trinity,  curves  west- 
ward through  the  evergreen  groves,  and  reaches  the  Mon- 
astery of  the  Holy  Virgin.  This  retreat  was  founded 
early  in  the  fifteenth  century  by  John  VIII  Palaiologos, 
last  Byzantine  emperor  except  one,  and  by  his  wife  Maria 
Komnena.  Their  conjugal  devotion  throws  a  gleam  of 
light  over  the  darkening  days  of  the  Empire.  Often  they 
came  together  to  Khalki,  rather  like  simple  lovers  than 
crowned  sovereigns,  to  see  their  monastery  grow. 

John  had  succeeded  to  the  crown  in  1425.     Then  had 
come  the  idyl,  all  too  brief,  of  the  Emperor's  life.     He 


John  VIII  Palaiologos 


276  CONSTANTINOPLE 

passionately  loved  Maria,  daughter  of  Alexios  IV,  Emperor 
of  Trebizond,  and  was  equally  loved  in  return.  Though 
he  could  tender  his  bride  but  little  save  a  pompous  title 
and  a  seat  on  a  falling  throne,  their  nuptial  rites  were 
celebrated  with  something  of  former  stateliness  in  Sancta 
Sophia.  So  Maria  took  her  plaee  in  history  as  the  last 
woman  wedded  beneath  the  mighty  dome,  and  as  the  last 
Byzantine  Empress.  The  exigencies  of  the  time  often 
compelled  her  husband's  absence,  and  their  consequent 
separation.  When  he  undertook  his  desperate  journey  to 
Italy  in  hope  of  securing  aid  against  the  Ottomans,  it  was 
in  spite  of  the  tears  and  entreaties  of  his  wife.  Seventeen 
months  later,  humiliated,  deluded,  overreached,  he  set  sail 
from  Venice  on  his  homeward  journey.  The  first  tidings 
which  met  him  upon  the  way  announced  that  Maria  had 
died  and  been  buried  a  few  days  before. 

The  monastery  fell  in  utter  ruin,  and  was  several  times 
restored,  —  in  1680,  by  Paniotakis,  the  pride  of  Scio.  the 
first  Christian  to  become  Chief  Interpreter  to  the  Porte, 
the  pet  of  Mohammed  IV,  who  made  for  him  a  magnifi- 
cent funeral  on  the  Danube,  and  sent  his  embalmed  body 
to  Khalki  to  be  interred  in  the  narthex  of  the  monastic 
church;  in  1796,  by  Alexander  Ypsilanti,  whose  family 
name  is  herald  and  part  of  the  Greek  Revolution ;  in 
1831,  by  the  Patriarch  Constantios  I  of  immortal  mem- 
ory, who  converted  the  buildings  designed  for  the  monks 
into  an  admirable  and  well-equipped  Commercial  School. 
So  the  inmates  are  no  longer  cloaked  and  bearded  ascet- 
ics, venerable  in  appearance  and  attire,  but  two  hundred 
and  fifty  young  men,  worthy  representatives  of  the  enter- 
prise and  ambition  of  their  race. 

In  the  renovated  pile,  near  the  larger  and  more  modern 
sanctuary,  rises  still  the  simple,  fifteenth-century  church 


THE  BOSPHORUS 


277 


of  the  Empress  Maria.  Blackened  by  age  and  fire,  of 
irregular  shape  and  proportion  and  of  varying  width,  it 
has  the  fadeless  beauty  of  association.  It  is  the  love- 
tribute  of  a  wife  to  her  husband  rather  than  to  the  Holy 
Virgin  whose  name  it  bears.  If  the  austere  memory  of 
Methodios  hallows  Antigone,  so  does  the  story  of  John 
and  Maria 
cast  a  softer 
but  no  less 
saintly  halo 
overKhalki. 

In  the 
church  are 
four  won- 
derful tap- 
e  s  t  r  i  e  s  , 
w  rought 
with  her 
own  fingers 
by  the  Lady 

Domina,  who  well  earned  her  place  of  burial  in  the  sacred 
narthex.  To  them  she  devoted  over  forty  years  of  con- 
stant labor.  They  reveal  the  most  skilful  and  the  most 
expressive  needlework  to  be  seen  in  Constantinople. 

Within  and  around  the  church  are  the  tombs  of  many 
patriarchs :  Timotheos,  who  died  in  1622 ;  Parthenios  II, 
massacred  in  1650 ;  Parthenios  III,  massacred  in  1656  ; 
Kallinikos  II,  died  in  1702  ;  Gabriel  III,  died  in  1707  ; 
Paisios  II,  hung  in  1752 ;  most  familiar  name  of  all, 
Kyril  Loukaris,  whose  body,  rescued  from  the  waves  at 
Roumeli  Hissar,  was  brought  here  for  burial. 

A  terrace  outside  the  monastery  has  been  made  a  ceme- 
tery.    The  brick  tomb   near  the   entrance    contains    the 


Church  of  the  Empress  Maria 


278  CONSTANTINOPLE 

remains  of  Sir  Edward  Barton.  Ambassador  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  to  Mourad  III  and  Mohammed  III.  A  monu- 
mental slab  bears  his  coat  of  arms  and  a  Latin  inscription, 

stating  that  the  "most  illustrious  and  most  serene  diplo- 
m.it  "  died  in  1597,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-five.  He 
fell  victim  to  a  pulmonary  disease,  and  not,  as  commonly 
supposed,  to  the  plague  which  raged  during  that  same  year, 
and  which,  in  a  single  day.  bereft  Mohammed  III  of  nine- 
teen of  his  sisters.  This  stone,  which  had  been  built  into 
the  wall  at  some  restoration  of  the  monastery,  was  dis- 
covered and  replaced  above  the  tomb  by  Sir  Stratford 
Canning. 

Farther  within  the  enclosure  is  a  common  grave,  where 
more  than  three  hundred  Russian  soldiers  lie  together. 
They  were  taken  prisoners  and  died  in  captivity  during 
that  war  of  1828-21)  which  Russia  waged  for  the  liberty 
of  Greece.  An  angel  in  white  marble  stands  above  the 
memorial  stone.  The  epitaph  in  Russian  and  Greek 
describes  the  manner  of  their  death,  and  closes  with  this 
verse :  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  he  la}^ 
down  his  life  for  his  friends." 

The  southeast  extremity  of  the  island  has  its  monastery 
as  well.  It  was  erected  no  later  than  17-58  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Chalkedon  and  consecrated  to  Saint  George. 
Afterwards  its  founder  became  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople as  Joannikios  III.  The  disorders  of  the  time 
rendered  the  burden  of  his  office  too  heavy  for  his  hands. 
He  laid  down  the  patriarchal  staff,  withdrew  to  this  mon- 
astery, there  passed  thirty  years  of  peace,  and  there  died 
and  was  buried  in  1793.  The  two  superb  rows  of  cy- 
presses which  line  the  street  were  planted  by  his  hands. 
But  the  day  of  monasteries  is  over,  even  in  the  sluggish 
East.     The   rooms   formerly  tenanted  by  the  monks   are 


THE  BOSPHORUS  279 

now  the  summer  residences  of  private  families.  Well 
may  they  bless  the  Archbishop's  memory  that  he  built  in 
so  goodly  a  spot. 

Prinkipo,  the  Island  of  the  Prince,  is  the  largest  and 
most  populous  of  the  group.  Nearly  nine  miles  in  circuit, 
it  is  made  up  of  four  hills,  two  of  which  rival  each  other 
and  rise  above  the  rest.  Speculation  and  business  enter- 
prise have  broken  in  upon  its  quiet,  and  the  village  of 
fifteen  thousand  inhabitants  boasts  with  western  pride  of 
its  rapid  increase  in  wealth  and  population. 

The  humbler  houses  of  the  permanent  residents  are 
crowded  together  on  the  left  of  the  steamer  pier.  On  the 
right,  with  gardens  sloping  to  the  sea,  are  the  more  sump- 
tuous and  ostentatious  mansions  of  the  summer  visitors. 
Prinkipo  is  the  residence  of  Mr  Edwin  Pears,  the  leader 
of  the  Constantinople  Bar,  and  author  of  the  valuable 
history  of  the  Fourth  Crusade,  entitled,  "  The  Fall  of 
Constantinople."  Of  the  hermits  who,  till  a  few  years 
ago,  hid  from  mankind  in  its  caves  and  forests,  not  one 
survives. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  all  the  islands  suffered  fear- 
fully from  the  Venetians  and  Genoese.  Prinkipo  was  rav- 
aged by  the  Doge  Dandolo  and  his  followers  of  the  Fourth 
Crusade  prior  to  their  attack  upon  the  capital  in  1203. 
Ninety-nine  years  afterwards  the  Venetians  burned  all  its 
houses  to  the  ground,  and  drove  the  inhabitants  on  board 
their  ships,  Anchoring  off  Seraglio  Point,  they  stripped 
their  prisoners  naked,  bound  them  to  the  masts  and  decks, 
and  had  them  mercilessly  scourged  in  sight  of  the  horror- 
stricken  citizens,  until  the  senile  Emperor,  Andronikos  II, 
got  together  a  satisfactory  ransom.  A  thousand  years 
earlier,  Bishop  Nerses,  surnamed  the  Great,  on  account  of 
his  learning  and  piety,  was  during  twelve  months  shame- 


280  CONSTANTINOPLE 

fully  imprisoned  here.  He  had  come  as  ambassador  of 
the  Armenian  King,  Arsaces  II ;  but  his  orthodoxy  and 
his  outspoken  independence  angered  the  Arian  Emperor. 
Constantius  II,  and  inflamed  him  to  take  this  mean 
revenge. 

The  history  of  Prinkipo,  like  that  of  her  sister  islands, 
centres  in  her  many  monasteries.  Their  buildings  capped 
her  peaks,  spread  through  her  valleys,  and  bordered  her 
bays. 

On  the  eastern  side  one  climbs  an  almost  precipitous 
road  between  long  files  of  cypresses  to  the  Monastery  of 
Saint  George.  The  gigantic  boulders  at  the  top  seem 
quarried  and  placed  there  by  the  hands  of  Titans.  The 
three  decaying  churches  or  chapels  are  side  by  side.  The 
once  strong  and  numerous  brotherhood,  who  woke  them 
with  their  deep-voiced  chant,  has  dwindled  to  two  rheu- 
matic, querulous  old  men.  To  the  larger  church  lunatics 
and  supposed  demoniacs  were  often  brought  to  be  exor- 
cised by  prayer.  Attached  to  the  floor  may  still  be  seen 
many  rusty  iron  rings,  to  which  the  unfortunates  were 
chained  during  service. 

The  view  from  this  peak  is  the  most  extensive  which 
Constantinople  affords.  From  the  height  of  six  hundred 
and  seventy  feet  the  eye  sweeps  over  the  sea  and  compre- 
hends the  eastern  shores  of  the  Marmora.  Northwest, 
beyond  the  island  group,  the  fairy  outline  of  Stamboul 
and  Kadikeui  fringes  the  sky.  while  the  sombre  point  of 
Phanaraki  advances  in  the  foreground.  North  and  east 
along  the  sinuous  Asiatic  coast,  village  presses  upon  vil- 
lage, each  enriching  the  landscape  with  the  tints  of 
natural  beauty  or  association. 

Kai'sh  Dagh,  the  classic  Mount  Auxeneis,  lifts  its  solemn 
form   in   front,  still  crowned  by  the  ruins  of  the  famous 


THE  BOSPHORUS  281 

Monastery  of  the  Apostles,  whence  the  monks,  Theodosios 
and  Leontios,  were  called  against  their  will  to  the  Patri- 
archal Throne.  Far  along  its  foot  extends  Erenkeui,  ver- 
dant with  its  wide  stretch  of  fragrant  vineyards,  and 
famed  for  its  delicious  wines.  Close  to  the  sea,  the  hill 
of  Mai  Tepeh  overlooks  Khounkiar  Tcha'iri,  the  Prairie  of 
the  Sultan,  where,  in  1481,  Mohammed  II,  the  Conqueror, 
died.  Farther  east  is  Pendik,  embosomed  in  orchards  and 
gardens,  once  the  private  property  and  favorite  residence  of 
Belisarius  ;  then  Touzla,  with  its  snowy  salt-springs  and  its 
rapid  stream,  which  Homer  calls  the  "  torrent  Satnioeis;  " 
then  the  wavy  hill  of  Guebizeh,  the  ancient  Lybissa,  where 
the  fleeing  Hannibal  died,  and  on  whose  breezy  toj:>,  be- 
tween two  giant  cypresses,  tradition  points  out  his  grave. 
A  few  miles  farther,  on  the  eastern  side,  is  Herekeh  or 
ancient  Ankyron,  the  death-place  of  Constantine  the 
Great.  All  these  historic  spots  are  bound  together  by  the 
iron  bonds  of  the  Anatolian  Railway. 

Southward  across  the  gulf,  loom  the  Arganthonius 
Mountains.  At  their  foot  nestles  Yalova,  the  ancient 
Drepanon,  where  Saint  Helena  dwelt,  and  which  the 
filial  affection  of  her  son  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  city, 
and  called  Helenopolis.  By  its  side  flows  the  silver 
stream,  Kirk  Ghetchid,  the  Forty  Windings,  which  in- 
dicated the  utmost  western  boundary  of  the  great  Seld- 
joukian  Empire  of  Malek  Shah.  Forty  miles  still 
farther  south  is  seen  the  lordly  range  of  the  Bithynian 
Olympus,  winter  and  summer  alike  resplendent  with 
unchanging   snow. 

"  The  snowy  crown 
Of  far  Olympus 

Towers  radiantly,  as  when  the  Pagan's  dream 
Thronged  it  with  gods  and  bent  the  adoring  knee." 


282  CONS  TAXTINOPLE 

The  Monastery  of  Christ  on  the  northern  hill  has  for- 
gotten its  original  consecration,  and  become  a  popular  re- 
sort in  summer.  The  pine-groves,  which  surround  it.  and 
the  entrancing  vistas  which  it  opens  in  every  direction. 
ma}"  well  allure  the  lover  of  nature.  The  few  Ottoman 
ladies  of  the  island  delight  to  picnic  under  its  trees,  with 
discarded  veils  and  dressed  in  European  attire. 

Shut  within  the  valley,  but  looking  out  upon  the  sea.  is 
the  Monastery  of  Saint  Nicolas,  with  its  square  church  of 
peculiar  form.  Close  beside  it  is  the  enormous  circular 
cistern,  which  so  excited  the  amazement  of  the  English 
bishop,  Pococke,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 

A  little  farther  north  along  the  eastern  shore,  the  ground 
swells  in  gentle  undulations  over  almost-buried  heaps  of 
masonry,  which  the  Greek-  call  Kamarais,  or  the  Cham- 
bers. One  grass-grown,  shapeless  mass  emerges,  in  which 
five  rows  of  brick  and  stone  foundation-arches  can  be  dis- 
cerned, and  which  fills  an  area  over  one  hundred  feet 
square.  Two  chambers  in  it.  ossuaries  of  former  inmates, 
crammed  to  the  top  with  human  bones,  give  a  faint  idea 
of  the  multitude  to  whom  this  wide-spread  pile  was  once 
dwtdling-place  and  home.  Other  scattered  remains,  here 
and  there  peering  through  the  surface,  and  widely  strewn 
splinters  of  slabs  and  columns  prove  that  the  first  recog- 
nized central  mass  was  but  a  small  proportion  of  the 
former  structure 

Xo  other  edifice  in  the  islands  could  have  been  so  vast. 
Hardly  an  inscription  or  monogram  is  visible,  though  one 
magnificent  Byzantine  capital  bears  the  initials  of  Xike- 
phoros  II  Phokas,  the  conqueror  of  the  Saracens  and  the 
restorer  of  the  Empire,  who  died  in  969.  Doubtless  in 
the  yet  unturned  soil,  a  rich  reward  is  awaiting  the  investi- 
gator's spade,  but  the  mind  to-day  takes  in  only  a  concep- 


THE  BOSPHORUS  283 

tion  of  former  immense  extent  and  of  present  absolute 
ruin. 

This  is  the  Monastery  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  founded  in 
the  eighth  century  by  the  Empress  Irene,  when  at  the 
zenith  of  her  power,  and  always  crowded  by  hundreds  of 
willing  or  unwilling  nuns.  No  other  monastery  was  so 
set  apart  for  imperial  recluses  of  the  fairer  sex.  None 
other  was  trodden  by  so  many  once  crimson-buskined 
feet  of  dethroned  empresses  or  of  uncrowned  princesses 
whose  dynasties  had  fallen.  Seated  in  the  shadow  of 
the  mortuary  chamber,  one  recalls  the  roll  of  high-born 
women  who  have  wept  and  prayed  and  suffered  every 
humiliation  here.  The  long  procession  of  Byzantine  beau- 
ties, their  raven  tresses  shorn,  their  willowy  forms  en- 
wrapped in  clumsy  sackcloth,  the  voluntary  penitent,  the 
haughtily  indifferent,  the  fiercely  unsubmissive,  defile 
before  him. 

Foremost,  earliest,  stateliest,  yet  least  human  and  most 
unnatural  of  all,  at  their  head  passes  the  foundress  of  the 
Monastery,  the  Empress  Irene.  For  five  years  she  swayed 
the  sceptre  with  a  virile  hand.  The  horrid  crimes  that 
marked  her  accession  were  forgotten  in  the  splendor  of  her 
reign.  Greek  tradition  regards  her  as  the  promised  consort 
of  Charlemagne,  and  Greek  superstition  places  her  name 
in  the  calendar  of  the  saints.  In  802,  a  palace  intrigue 
hurled  her  from  the  throne.  Her  timorous  successor, 
Nikephoros  I,  confined  her  for  a  season  in  her  monastery, 
and  then  exiled  her  to  Mitylene.  Reduced  to  utmost 
want,  she  gained  a  scanty  livelihood  by  spinning  wool. 
Dying  from  exhaustion  and  of  a  broken  heart,  once  more 
she  passed  the  portal  of  her  monastery,  and  was  there 
entombed  in  a  sarcophagus  of  vert  antique  with  imperial 
obsequies. 


284 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


Euphrosyne,  daughter  of  Constantine  VI,  is  a  more 
plaintive  figure.  On  the  deposition  of  her  father  by  his 
mother,  Irene,  she,  a  sickly  girl  seven  years  old,  was 
incarcerated  here  as  a  nun.  The  legend  of  her  opening, 
ripening  beauty  was  constantly  repeated  by  the  lips  of  the 
common  people.  In  823,  after  she  had  spent  twenty-six 
years  in  utter  seclusion,  the  sanctity  of  the  convent  was 
invaded  by  Michael  II,  whose  imagination  had  been  fired 
by  her  reputed  charms,  and  who  forced  the  consecrated 
nun  to  become  his  bride.     On  his  death,  six  years  later,  Eu- 

phrosyne  returned  to  the  cloister 
of  her  childhood,  wherein  already 
had  been  passed  two-thirds  of  her 
checkered  life.  "  Again  the  si- 
lence closed  around  her  and  the 
shadow,  from  which  she  was  never 
to  emerge." 

The  voluptuous  Zoe,  widow  of 
three  emperors,  in  whose  veins  at 
the  age  of  seventy-five  beat  all  the 
passionate  blood  of  her  youth,  was 
sent  here  in  1042  by  her  adopted 
and  graceless  son  Michael  V.  The 
Greek  historian  describes  the  crowned  adventurer,  rubbing 
between  his  fingers  the  shaven  locks  of  his  benefactress, 
and  promising  himself  a  stable  throne  as  he  held  the 
proofs  that  she  had  become  a  nun.  Hardly  twelve 
months  were  gone,  when  the  indignant  people  called  her 
from  her  retirement  and  forced  her,  though  not  against 
her  will,  to  reassume  the  crown. 

A  generation  later  the  monastery  received  Anna  Dalas- 
sina,  the  mother  of  the  Komnenoi,  the  grandest  female 
figure  in  Byzantine  history.     The  death  of  her  husband, 


The  Empress  Zoe 


THE  BOSPHOEUS  285 

the  Caesar  John  Komnenos,  had  left  her  unprotected  in  a 
hostile  court  and  in  troubled  times  with  eight  helpless 
children.  Soon  she  was  accused  of  high  treason.  Her 
courage  and  impetuous  eloquence  overawed  her  venal 
judges.  They  dared  not  pronounce  sentence  of  death,  but 
condemned  her  to  perpetual  confinement  at  Prinkipo. 
Her  sons  likewise  were  forced  to  assume  the  cowl.  A 
breath  of  imperial  favor  followed,  and  she  and  her  children 
were  released.  To  them  she  devoted  every  energy  of  her 
soul.  Herself  brave,  virtuous,  religious,  persistent,  she 
inspired  them  with  something  of  her  heroic  character  and 
of  her  high  ambition.     Not  an  opportunity  was  lost. 

When  at  last,  in  obedience  to  the  popular  call,  her  old- 
est surviving  son,  Alexios  Komnenos,  ascended  the  imperial 
throne  for  a  glorious  reign,  he  and  the  nation  recognized 
that  to  the  inspiration  of  his  mother  was  due  all  the  great- 
ness of  his  house.  For  years  her  counsels  were  paramount 
in  the  affairs  of  state.  Finally  she  grew  weary  of  the 
world,  which  she  had  won.  She  retired,  this  time  of  her 
own  will  and  wish,  to  a  convent,  and  there  lived  until  her 
death,  peaceful  and  content  in  its  seclusion. 

She  deserves  equal  honor  with  the  Cornelias,  the  Mary 
Washingtons,  the  Madame  Laetitias,  who  have  shaped  the 
character  and  determined  the  destiny  of  their  sons.  The 
monastery  at  Prinkipo  closed  on  many  another  exalted 
prisoner  or  guest,  but  the  long  list  cannot  end  more  fitly 
than  with  the  name  of  Anna  Dalassina,  the  greatest  and 
noblest  of  them  all. 

Neandros,  the  farthest  south  of  the  cluster,  is  a  dreary 
heap  of  rock  and  sand. 

Anterovithos,  the  farthest  east,  is  hardly  less  sterile  and 
uninviting.  One  solitary  dwelling  and  a  few  stunted  and 
scattered  trees  only  render  the   general  desolation  more 


286  CONSTANTINOPLE 

apparent.  Even  the  grape-vines  refuse  to  grow,  and  the 
judas-tree,  elsewhere  prodigal  of  its  crimson  blossoms, 
strikes  no  root  in  the  stubborn  soil.  The  mediaeval  mon- 
astery, founded  in  the  ninth  century  by  the  Patriarch 
Ignatios,  throve  where  nothing  else  would  prosper.  The 
austerity  and  blameless  lives  of  its  numerous  inmates  won 
for  it  a  wide  renown.  As  the  monastic  fervor  ceased  in 
later  times,  it  was  deserted,  and  only  ruins  indicate  its 
site. 

Only  one  emperor  here  assumed  monastic  vows,  and 
sorely  against  his  will.  The  rebel  prince  Constantine, 
who  had  deposed  his  father  Romanos  I,  and  then  thirty- 
nine  days  later  shared  his  captivity  at  Proti,  was  shut  here 
for  months  by  the  rightful  sovereign,  Constantine  VIII. 
Day  and  night  his  restless  eyes  scoured  the  sea  in  mingled 
hope  and  fear.  Each  distant  bark,  which  broke  the 
monotonous  horizon,  might  be  freighted  with  his  deliver- 
ance or  might  be  bringing  the  executioner.  Constantly 
endeavoring  to  escape,  he  was  removed  to  Teneclos  and 
thence  to  Samothrace,  where  he  died  in  unmonkish  fight. 

Two  patriarchs,  Ignatios  and  Theodosios  I,  by  their 
sojourn  on  it  have  given  to  the  now-forsaken  rock  its  most 
memorable  distinction.  No  other  Byzantine  emperors 
equalled  Michael  III  and  Anclronikos  I  in  degradation 
and  infamy.  Though  separated  by  three  hundred  years, 
each  seems  the  foul  counterpart  of  the  other.  Ignatios 
was  patriarch  during  the  reign  of  the  first ;  Theodosios 
during  that  of  the  second.  Each,  with  the  courage  of  a 
Nathan  or  Elijah,  to  the  Emperor's  very  face  denounced 
the  crimes  committed  upon  the  throne.  Persecution  and 
torture  followed  ;  but  neither  sovereign,  though  frenzied 
with  resentment,  dared  slay  the  dauntless  priest.  Ignatios 
was  deposed  and  banished  to  this  monastery,  of  which  he 


THE  BOSPHORUS  287 

was  the  founder.  When  three  centuries  later  Theodosios 
in  turn  was  ordered  to  the  same  cell,  it  must  have  eased 
his  sufferings  to  remember  that  there  his  feet  were  tread- 
ing in  the  footsteps  of  a  hero  and  saint. 

Bests  on  these  isles  a  bright  halo  of  glory; 

Hallowed  this  rock  which  the  martyrs  have  trod: 
Why  sorrow  we  for  their  foreheads  once  gory, 

Crown- girt  to-day  by  the  white  throne  of  God ! 

After  all,  it  is  not  upon  scenes  of  terrestrial  loveliness,  or 
on  the  oft-piteous  romance  of  imperial  power  and  beauty, 
that  the  mind  most  lingers  in  the  Princes'  Islands.  Hero- 
ism as  sublime,  consecration  as  entire,  fidelity  to  principle 
as  deathless  and  unswerving  as  the  world  ever  saw,  have 
been  wrought  out  here.  Well  may  the  Honorable  S.  S. 
Cox  exclaim,  as  in  the  glowing  pages  of  his  "  The  Princes' 
Islands  "  he  recalls  the  past,  "  These  isles  have  witnessed, 
as  they  look  out  toward  Chalkedon  and  Niksea,  the  scholar- 
ship and  devotion  of  an  intrepid  race  of  ecclesiastical 
heroes." 


VII 

ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

0  absolutely  accurate,  no  satisfactory 
picture  of  the  imperial  city  as  it 
existed  fifteen  hundred  or  even  five 
hundred  years  ago,  can  be  drawn 
to-day.  The  main  information  of 
the  moderns  must  be  derived  from 
the  Byzantine  authors,  whose  lengthy 
treatises  and  fluctuating  style  reflect  the  vicissitudes  of 
national  life,  but  pay  small  attention  to  topography. 
Though  prodigal  of  adjectives,  and  ofttimes  loquacious, 
those  writers  almost  never  indulge  in  definite  descriptions 
or  minute  details.  They  thought  only  of  their  contem- 
poraries, who  threaded  the  public  ways  with  them,  and 
had  no  need  of  indication  to  find  the  edifice  or  the  monu- 
ment plain  before  their  eyes.  Out  of  the  fourteen 
churches  consecrated  to  Saint  John  the  Baptist,  or  the 
more  than  fifty  to  the  Holy  Virgin  —  always,  in  attestation 
of  Christ's  divinity,  called  the  Theotokos,  the  Mother  of 
God  —  the  Byzantine  easily  understood  on  each  occasion 
which  one  was  intended.  Though  several  city  quarters 
and  different  gates  were  known  by  a  common  name,  and 
even  though  these  names  were  often  changing,  the  mediae- 
val citizen  felt  no  inconvenience  and  was  involved  in  no 
confusion. 

How  priceless  now  would  be  the  driest  of  its  city  direct- 
ories, the   dullest  of   its    guide-books,  the   crudest   of  its 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  289 

maps,  if  such  a  treasure  could  be  unearthed  to-day,  bear- 
ing on  its  titlepage,  "  Compiled  in  the  days  of  Justinian  " 
or  of  Basil  or  of  Alexios  I  Komnenos.  What  months  of 
labor  and  of  sometimes  fruitless  investigation  it  would 
economize  to  the  puzzled  student. 

Despite  the  "flood  of  learning"  poured  on  Constanti- 
nopolis  Christiana  by  Du  Cange ;  despite  the  faithful 
researches  of  later  scholars ;  despite  one's  own  long-contin- 
ued, patient  study,  —  the  modern,  as  he  seeks  to  trace  anew 
the  tortuous  streets,  and  to  line  them  with  the  edifices 
which  made  them  glorious  and  grand,  gropes  almost  help- 
lessly along  his  way  and  finds  more  than  once  his  resur- 
rected thoroughfare  ending  in  an  impasse.  Battled  and 
discouraged,  he  realizes  that  much  must  remain  uncertain 
and  a  theme  for  controversy. 

The  antiquary  is  the  compiler,  and  topography  is 
his  efficient  ally.  The  hills,  the  valleys,  the  curving 
bed  of  the  Lycus,  the  inevitable  paths  which  nature  her- 
self has  marked  out,  are  here  guides  and  aids.  He  who 
would  unveil  some  ancient  city,  planted  in  a  plain,  can 
summon  no  such  auxiliaries  to  his  call.  A  chance  line 
from  some  mediaeval  author  streams  light  where  all  was 
darkness.  A  sneering  reference  from  Prokopios  may 
identify  a  locality.  It  is  a  slow,  a  toilsome,  a  weary  task 
to  reconstruct  any  ancient,  vanished  city.     But, 

"Here,  as  in  other  fields,  the  most  he  gleans 
Who  works  and  never  swerves." 

As  names  become  realities  and  fit  into  their  appropri- 
ate place,  the  patient  plodder  realizes  with  joy  which  is 
almost  exultation  that  much  of  mediaeval  Constantinople 
can  be  accurately  and  definitely  known. 

VOL.  I.  — 19 


290  CONSTANTINOPLE 


THE    REGIONS 

Constantixe,  as  he  built  his  capital,  had  ever  before 
his  eyes  the  venerable  figure  of  the  elder  city,  Rome. 
From  her  he  patterned  the  municipal  divisions  and  the 
local  organization  of  the  new  metropolis.  Hence  he  di- 
vided Constantinople  into  fourteen  regions,  or  climata. 
Each  was  administered  by  its  own  local  government,  was 
officered  and  protected  by  its  own  police,  and  was  watched 
with  scrupulous  care  to  avert  the  two  ever  possible  dan- 
gers, public  disorder  and  fire.  The  boundaries  of  the  re- 
gions were  vaguely  defined,  and  were  sometimes  modified 
in  the  thousand  years'  duration  of  the  city.  Yet  the 
municipal  arrangement  to  the  end  was  always  largely  that 
of  the  first  Constant ine. 

Early  in  his  reign,  the  Emperor  Arcadius  undertook  a 
census.  This  was  hardly  more  than  an  aristocratic  enum- 
eration. It  counted  all  the  private  palaces  and  mansions 
of  the  rich,  called  megara,  all  the  emboloi,  or  lengthy  and 
ornate-covered  porticos,  all  the  bathra,  or  streets  paved 
in  steps,  and  all  the  other  streets  which  were  wide  and 
spacious.  It  reckoned  also  the  neoria,  or  dockyards,  and 
various  edifices  of  special  prominence  or  utility,  but  it  dis- 
dained consideration  of  the  humbler  narrow  streets  and  of 
the  dwellings  of  the  poorer  classes.  Incomplete  though 
this  census  was,  —  only  the  stripped  and  partial  outline 
of  the  municipal  whole,  —  it  is  a  rich  and  valuable  source 
of  information,  would  we  essay  to  represent  the  city  in 
its  populousness.  immensity,  and  glory. 

The  First  Region  occupied  the  northeastern  extremity 
of  the  city,  thus  including  nearly  all  the  territory  of  By- 
zantium.    It  contained  the  Acropolis  of  Saint  Demetrios, 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  291 

now  Seraglio  Point;  the  Mangana,  or  Arsenal,  to  which 
was  stretched  the  chain  from  Galata  whereby  the  Golden 
Horn  was  closed ;  the  famous  Monastery  of  Saint  George 
of  the  Mangana,  and  the  historic  churches  of  Saint  Deme- 
trios,  Saint  Barbara,  Saint  Minas,  Saint  Lazaros,  the 
Archangel  Michael  of  Tzeros,  and  the  Saviour.  The 
ayasma,  or  holy  fountain,  of  the  latter,  is  still  revered 
near  the  ruins  of  Tndjili  Kiosk.  There,  too,  were  sit- 
uated a  column  of  Theodosius  I  and  the  Baths  of 
Arcadius.  This  region  comprised  twenty-nine  streets, 
one  hundred  and  eighteen  megara,  two  emboloi,  fifteen 
private  baths,  four  public  and  fifteen  private  mills,  and 
four  bathra. 

The  Second  Region  occupied  the  crest  of  the  same  hill. 
On  it  were  situated  the  churches  of  Sancta  Sophia,  Saint 
Irene,  and  of  the  Theotokos  the  Patrician  ;  the  hospital  of 
Samson ;  the  vast  hotel  of  Euboulos  ;  a  portion  of  the 
Augustseum  ;  the  Bath  of  Xeuxippos ;  the  Hippodrome ; 
the  later  Senate  House  and  the  colossal  Statue  of  Justinian. 
In  it  were  thirty-four  streets,  ninety-eight  megara,  four 
emboloi,  thirteen  private  baths,  and  four  bathra. 

The  Third  Region  was  south  of  the  First  and  east  of 
the  Second,  reaching  to  the  Bosphorus  and  Marmora.  It 
contained  a  portion  of  the  AugusteBum,  the  Great  or  Im- 
perial Palace,  and  the  dependent  though  splendid  palaces 
of  Chalki,  Manavra,  the  Eagle,  Porphyry,  Pentakoubouklon, 
and  Boucoleon  with  its  harbor,  of  the  Augusta  Pulcheria, 
and  of  Hormisdas.  In  the  same  region  were  the  Patri- 
archate,  the  celebrated  church  and  monastery  of  the  Holy 
Virgin  the  Odeghetria,  the  churches  of  Saint  Euphemia, 
Saints  Sergius  and  Bacchus,  Saints  Peter  and  Paul,  and  a 
neorion,  or  dockyard.  In  it  were  seven  streets,  ninety- 
four  megara,  five  emboloi,  eleven  private  baths,  and  nine 


292  CONSTANTINOPLE 

private  mills.  The  walls  of  the  Seraglio  now  include  the 
First  Region  almost  entire,  and  portions  of  the  Second 
and  Third. 

The  Fourth  Region,  commencing  from  the  Golden  Horn, 
comprised  the  slope  of  the  first  and  second  hills,  and, 
bounding  the  Second  Region,  reached  as  far  as  the  third 
hill.  It  contained  the  churches  of  the  Theotokos  in  Chalk- 
ropratia  and  of  Saint  John  the  Theologian,  which,  after  the 
Conquest,  was  converted  into  a  menagerie  of  wild  animals, 
and  existed  till  IS  19;  the  Royal  Portico,  where  lawyers 
and  orators  held  rendezvous  ;  the  Royal  Library,  and  the 
Royal  Cistern.  In  it  were  thirty-two  streets,  three  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  megara,  four  emboloi,  seven  private 
baths,  five  private  mills,  and  six  bathra.  Here  resided 
the  Byzantine  nobility ;  this  was  the  aristocratic  quarter. 

The  Fifth  Region  embraced  the  larger  part  of  the  east- 
ern slope  of  the  third  hill  and  part  of  the  second  hill,  with 
territory  on  the  Golden  Horn.  It  contained  the  Scala,  or 
landing-place,  of  the  Chalkedonians ;  the  Bosporion,  or 
Phosphorion ;  the  Baths  of  Honorius  and  Eudoxia ;  the 
Strategion,  or  military  headquarters  ;  the  Prytaneion,  or 
University ;  the  cisterns  of  Philoxenos  and  Theodosius ; 
and  the  churches  of  Saint  James,  Saint  Tryphon,  and  the 
Theotokos  of  Ourbikios.  In  it  were  twenty-three  streets, 
eighty-four  megara,  seven  emboloi,  eleven  private  baths, 
seven  public  and  two  private  mills,  nine  bathra,  and  two 
slaughter-houses . 

The  Sixth  Region  lay  west  of  the  Fifth,  on  the  western 
slope  of  the  third  hill  and  on  the  crest  of  the  second  hill, 
also  including  land  on  the  Golden  Horn  as  far  as  Perama, 
now  Baluk  Bazar  Kapou.  It  contained  the  column  and 
part  of  the  Forum  of  Constantine ;  the  Philadelphion,  or 
public  hall ;  the  ancient  Senate  House,  built  by  Constan- 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  293 

tine,  in  which  the  Emperors  were  invested  with  the  con- 
sular rohe.  Here  too  were  grouped  the  churches  of  Saint 
Thekla,  Saint  Anne,  Saint  Andrew,  Saint  Thomas  the 
Apostle,  Saint  Pantelemon,  Saint  Platon,  Saint  Theodore 
of  Tyrone,  and  the  Archangel  Michael ;  also  the  monas- 
teries of  Saint  Prokopios,  Saint  Julian,  and  Saints  Karpos 
and  Papilos.  In  it  were  twenty-two  streets,  two  hundred 
and  eighty-four  megara,  one  embolos,  nine  private  baths, 
one  public  mill,  seventeen  private  mills,  and  seventeen 
bathra. 

The  Seventh  Region  comprised  the  upper  portion  of  the 
valley  between  the  second  and  third  hills,  and  part  of  the 
third  hill.  It  extended  to  the  Marmora  between  the  Third 
Region  and  Konto-Scala.  It  contained  the  Lanipter,  or 
immense  workshop,  now  the  centre  of  the  Grand  Bazar ; 
half  of  the  Forum  of  Theodosius ;  the  brazen  Tetrapylon, 
or  passage  ;  the  Anemodourion,  a  sort  of  weather  bureau ; 
the  Carrosian  Baths ;  and  the  churches  of  Saint  Theodore 
and  Saint  Paul  the  Patriarch.  In  it  were  eighty-five  streets, 
seven  hundred  and  eleven  megara,  six  emboloi,  eleven 
private  baths,  twelve  private  mills,  and  sixteen  bathra. 

The  Eighth  Region  was  southwest  of  the  third  hill,  no- 
where bordering  on  the  sea.  Elegant  and  lengthy  por- 
ticos connected  it  with  the  Forum  of  Constantine.  It 
contained  the  remaining  portions  of  the  forums  of  Con- 
stantine and  Theodosius  ;  the  palace  of  Theodosius  ;  the 
Capitolium,  at  one  time  the  University ;  and  the  churches 
of  the  Forty  Martyrs  and  of  Saint  Mark.  In  it  were 
twenty-one  streets,  one  hundred  and  eight  megara,  five 
emboloi,  ten  private  baths,  five  private  mills,  five  bathra, 
and  two  slaughter-houses. 

The  Ninth  Region  extended  along  the  Marmora  between 
Konto-Scala   and  Vlaium.     It  contained  the  Alexandrian 


294  CONSTANTINOPLE 

and  Theodosian wheat  magazines;  the  palace  of  Arcadia; 
the  churches  of  the  Rabdos,  Saint  Thekla  in  Kontaria, 
Omonoia,  or  Concord,  and  the  Monastery  of  Myrelaion. 
In  it  were  sixteen  streets,  one  hundred  and  sixteen  megara, 
two  emboloi,  fifteen  private  baths,  fifteen  private  mills, 
four  public  mills,  and  four  bathra. 

The  Tenth  Region  comprised  all  the  fourth  hill,  and 
was  separated  on  the  south  from  the  Ninth  Region  by  the 
broad  Mese  Odos.  or  Triumphal  Way.  It  contained  the 
vast  nymphamm,  or  reservoir ;  the  aqueduct  of  Valens ; 
the  Baths  of  Constantine ;  the  column  of  Marcian  ;  the 
cistern  of  Phokas  ;  the  churches  of  the  Holy  Apostles,  All 
Saints,  Saint  Platon,  Saint  Polyeuktos ;  and  the  monas- 
teries of  Pantokrator,  Pantepoptes,  Panachrantos,  and 
Lips.  In  it  were  twenty  streets,  six  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  niegara,  six  emboloi,  twenty-two  private  baths,  two  pub- 
lic mills,  sixteen  private  mills,  and  twelve  bathra.  This 
Region  was  for  some  cause  more  unquiet  and  restless  than 
any  other  in  the  city ;  order  was  maintained  by  ninety- 
seven  policemen,  no  other  quarter  requiring  so  large  a 
number. 

The  Eleventh  Region  comprehended  all  the  fifth  hill, 
or,  more  accurately,  all  the  land  from  the  present  Mosque 
of  Sultan  Selim  as  far  as  Djubali  on  one  side  and  Balat 
on  the  other.  It  contained  the  palace  of  Placidia ;  the 
many  monasteries  and  churches  in  the  Petrion ;  the  mon- 
asteries of  Pammakaristos  and  Evergetes  ;  the  churches  of 
the  Theotokos  the  Mouchliotissa,  of  Saint  Theodosia  and 
Saint  Akakios.  In  it  were  eight  streets,  five  hundred  and 
three  megara.  four  emboloi,  fourteen  private  baths,  one 
public  mill,  three  private  mills,  and  seven  bathra. 

The  Twelfth  Region  corresponded  with  the  seventh  hill, 
or  Xerolophos.     It  contained  the  Arcadian  Forum ;    the 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  295 

cistern  of  Mokios ;  the  Mint ;  the  palace  of  Pulcheria ; 
the  Golden  Gate  ;  the  Kyklobion,  or  fortress ;  the  monas- 
teries of  Gastria,  Prokopia,  Peribleptos,  Ikaria,  the  Stu- 
clinni ;  and  the  churches  of  Saint  Diomedes,  Saint  Mokios, 
the  Apostle  Philip,  and  Saint  Eleutherios.  In  it  were 
eleven  streets,  three  hundred  and  sixty-three  megara, 
three  emboloi,  five  private  baths,  five  private  mills,  and 
nine  bathra.  This  Region,  despite  its  extended  area,  and 
the  Eighth  Region,  required  each  only  twenty-four  police- 
men for  public  safety,  a  much  less  number  than  the  other 
Regions  save  the  Third,  which  was  served  by  only  twenty- 
eight. 

The  Thirteenth  Region  was  included  in  the  opposite 
cape  or  promontory  of  Sykai,  now  Galata,  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Golden  Horn.  It  contained  the  Baths  and 
Forum  of  Honorius,  a  theatre,  and  two  neoria.  In  it 
were  four  hundred  and  thirty-one  megara,  one  embolos, 
five  private  baths,  one  public  mill,  five  private  mills,  and 
eight  bathra. 

The  Fourteenth  Region  coincided  with  the  sixth  hill.  It 
contained  the  palaces  of  the  Hebdomon  and  of  Theophilos' 
daughters ;  the  tower  and  prison  of  Anemas ;  the  palace 
and  church  of  the  Blachernai ;  the  monasteries  of  Chora 
and  Manuel ;  the  churches  of  Saint  Thekla,  Saint  John 
the  Baptist,  Saint  John  the  Theologian,  Saint  George,  the 
Incorporeal s,  the  Theotokos  of  Cyrus,  Saints  Peter  and 
Mark ;  and  a  neorion.  In  it  were  eleven  streets,  one 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  megara,  two  emboloi,  five  private 
baths,  one  private  mill,  and  five  bathra. 


296  CONSTANTINOPLE 


THE   BATHS 


The  public  baths,  as  club-houses  aucl  places  of  popular 
resort,  held  a  far  less  important  place  in  the  city  life  of 
Constantinople  than  they  did  in  that  of  Rome.  But 
though  smaller,  they  were  hardly  less  elegant  and  luxu- 
rious. Some  resembled  archeological  museums,  so  pro- 
fusely were  they  adorned  with  rare  treasures  of  ancient 
art ;  others,  of  later  construction,  were  the  embodiment 
of  Byzantine  gorgeousness  and  profusion.  The  Patriarch 
Constantios  I  supposes  there  was  eighty.  The  names  of 
twenty-four  are  still  known. 

Anastasia,  sister  of  Constantine  the  Great,  and  wife  of 
the  Cassar  Bassianus,  erected  one  of  the  most  splendid. 
It  stood  southwest  of  the  Hippodrome.  Another,  bearing 
the  name  of  Achilles,  occupied  the  site  of  an  altar  dedi- 
cated to  that  hero,  near  the  Golden  Horn,  in  the  Fourth 
Region.  The  one  bestowed  upon  the  city  by  Constantine 
existed  longer  than  any  of  the  rest,  was  known  by  the 
Ottomans  as  Tchochour  Hamam,  and  was  buried  from 
sight  six  years  ago.  The  Imperial  Bath  of  the  Blachernai 
was  destroyed  in  the  fifth  century.  Not  inferior  in  splen- 
dor was  that  of  Arcadius,  on  the  Bosphorus,  not  far  from 
the  site  of  Indjili  Kiosk.  Justinian  crowded  it  with  mas- 
terpieces in  bronze  and  marble,  among  which,  as  in  a  lit- 
ting  company,  the  admiring  citizens  placed  an  exquisite 
statue  of  the  beautiful  Theodora. 

The  one  unequalled  and  unapproached  in  vastness  and 
magnificence  was  the  Bath  of  Xeuxippos,  so  called,  per- 
haps, from  the  famous  Megarian  chief.  A  better  origin 
of  the  name  is  found  in  its  etymologic  meaning,  "  yoking 
of  the  steeds."     Tradition  asserts  that  this  bath  indicated 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  297 

the  very  spot  where  Hercules  tamed  and  yoked  the  fiery 
steeds  of  Diomed.  In  the  grove  sacred  to  that  hero  stood 
an  altar,  it  was  believed,  raised  by  him  to  Jupiter  after 
his  exploit.  The  bath  was  first  erected  by  the  Emperor 
Severus  in  partial  expiation  for  his  inhumanity  to  the 
Byzantines.  Rebuilt  by  Constant ine,  it  was  utterly  de- 
stroyed at  the  revolt  of  the  Nika  in  532,  and  again 
restored  with  added  splendor  by  Justinian.  It  was  situ- 
ated east  of  the  Hippodrome,  and  southeast  of  the  Augus- 
tseum.  Sumptuous  and  luxurious  throughout,  it  was 
constructed  of  the  rarest  materials,  and  adorned  with 
eighty-three  renowned  pieces  of  statuary.  A  heap  of 
ruins  at  the  Conquest,  Mohammed  II  employed  its  debris 
in  the  construction  of  his  mosque.  The  last  vestiges  had 
disappeared  before  the  visit  of  Peter  Gyllius,  seventy  years 
afterwards. 

THE   FORUMS 

Four  were  imperial.  In  addition  there  were  many 
more.  But  from  them  all,  the  rostra  and  the  public 
assemblies  were  wanting,  which  made  the  glory  and  his- 
tory of  the  Roman  Forum.  The  oldest  and  most  impor- 
tant, Constantine  honored  with  the  name  August seum,  in 
memory  of  his  mother,  the  Augusta  Saint  Helena.  Its 
extent  and  exact  site  cannot  now  be  absolutely  deter- 
mined. It  is  an  amusing  commentary  on  the  vagueness 
of  old  description,  and  the  consequent  disagreement  of 
modern  antiquaries,  that  Lechevalier  asserts  that  the 
August  reum  must  have  been  circular,  Labarte  infers  that 
it  was  square,  and  Paspatis  supposes  that  it  was  a  long, 
narrow  rectangle.  The  last  opinion  is  probably  correct. 
This   at   least   we   know  :    that   it   was   of   immense   size, 


298 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


paved  in  marble,  and  surrounded  by  a  row  of  the  noblest 
statues  then  existing ;  that  on  the  one  side  stood  the  Bath 
of  Xeuxippos,  and  the  imposing  palaces  of  the  Patriarch 
and  the  Senate,  over  which  beyond  rose  the  prodigious,  in- 
congruous, but  impressive  pile  of  the  Great  Palace ;  that  on 
the  other  side  towered  the  lofty,  interminable  wall  of  the 
Hippodrome,  with  its  colonnades  and  arches  ;  that  it  was 

terminated  on  the 
north  by  the  vast- 
est, most  ethereal, 
most  revered  of 
Christian  churches 
then  in  the  world  ; 
and  that  it  was  it- 
self a  marvel  all 
through  the  Middle 
Ages.  Somewhere 
within  its  enclosure 
was  the  Milion,  — 
the  starting-point 
from  which  dis- 
tances were  reck- 
oned over  the  Em- 
pire ;  this  was  at 
first  a  simple  mar- 
ble column,  but 
afterwards  a  sort  of  temple  edifice,  resting  on  four  arches 
of  broad  span,  and  surrounded  by  statues. 

The  typical  and  most  celebrated  marble  group  adorn- 
ing the  Augustamm  represented  Constant  ine  and  Saint 
Helena  standing  one  on  each  side  of  an  overshadow- 
ing cross.  Every  orthodox  Eastern  church  since  that 
day  has  possessed  a   copy  of   it   among  its   icons.      One 


'/<**"-/ "y 


"constantine  the  great  and  his  mother 
Saint     Helena,    holy,    equal    to    the 
Apostles." 
[From  a  picture  discovered  1845  in  an  old  church  of 

Mesembria.] 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  299 

statue,  on  passing  which  it  is  said  the  Emperor  always 
bowed  his  head,  was  that  of  his  mother  upon  a  porphyry 
pedestal. 

Theodosius  I  placed  here  a  gilded  statue  of  himself. 
This  was  afterwards  melted,  and  the  colossal  equestrian 
statue  of  Justinian  took  its  place.  This  was  the  most 
enormous  monument  in  the  Augusta^um.  Procopios  says 
that  the  rider  was  clad  in  the  costume  of  Achilles,  and 
faced  the  east.  The  left  hand  grasped  a  globe,  signifying 
universal  sovereignty,  while  the  right  hand  was  extended 
in  menacing  gesture,  as  if  to  overawe  the  Persians.  The 
Italian  traveller,  Bondelmonti,  saw  this  statue  in  1422, 
and  states  that  the  pedestal,  all  covered  with  bronze 
plates,  and  raised  on  seven  marble  steps,  was  seventy 
coudees,  or  over  one  hundred  feet  in  height.  On  this 
pedestal,  after  the  Conquest,  Mohammed  II  placed  the 
supposed  head  of  the  last  Constantine,  and  there  it  re- 
mained three  days  exposed  to  the  public  gaze.  Then  the 
statue  was  taken  down  and  broken  to  pieces.  Some  frag- 
ments were  preserved,  which  Gryllius  saw  and  measured 
seventy  years  afterwards.  It  was  six  feet  from  the  ankle 
to  the  knee,  and  the  nose  was  more  than  nine  inches 
long. 

The  Forum  of  Constantine  was  hardly  less  celebrated 
than  the  Augusteeum.  It  was  elliptical  in  form,  paved 
throughout,  and  surrounded  by  a  colonnade.  At  each  end 
of  the  ellipse  was  a  spacious  portico,  along  which  were 
ranged  ancient  statues  of  the  pagan  gods,  and  at  the  very 
end  rose  a  stupendous  arch  of  triumph.  Near  the  centre 
was  the  lofty  column  from  whose  dizzy  top  the  statue  of 
Constantine  dominated  the  forum  and  capital ;  near  the 
column  was  a  monumental  fountain,  on  which  were  por- 
trayed the  two  scenes  which  decorated  all  the  fountains 


300  CONSTANTINOPLE 

raised  by  Constantine,  —  Daniel  in  the  den  of  lions  and 
the  Good  Shepherd. 

By  the  brazen  portico  called  Tetrapylon,  on  which  the 
four  cardinal  winds  were  represented,  this  forum  com- 
municated with  that  of  Theodosius  I,  or  of  the  Bull. 
The  latter  name  was  derived  from  the  monstrous  brazen 
statue  of  a  bull  which  it  contained.  This  image  had  been 
brought  from  Pergamus,  where  it  had  served  as  a  means 
of  capital  punishment,  condemned  persons  being  roasted 
to  death  inside.  According  to  tradition  it  had  thus  served 
in  the  martyrdom  of  Antipas,  who  is  mentioned  in  the 
Apocalypse.  In  this  forum  also  stood  a  column  of  Theo- 
dosius I,  erected  by  himself,  one  hundred  and  forty  feet 
high,  surmounted  by  his  statue  of  silver  gilt.  In  477,  an 
earthquake  shook  it  down  ;  whereupon  Anastasius  I  re- 
placed the  tumbled  effigy  by  a  colossal  bronze  statue  of 
himself.  This  last  statue  in  turn  disappeared ;  but  the 
column  itself  remained  till  1517,  when  it  was  overthrown 
by  a  tornado,  killing  several  persons  in  its  fall.  The  en- 
circling statues,  which  had  appeared  to  be  its  guard,  had 
themselves  been  overturned  in  555,  almost  a  thousand 
years  previously. 

The  peristyled  Forum  of  Arcadius  was  constructed  by 
Honorius  II,  but  was  by  him  named  after  his  father  with 
filial  devotion ;  so,  too,  was  the  graceful  column,  covered 
with  chaste  carvings  and  crowned  by  his  father's  statue. 
The  pedestal  still  exists. 

Ten  other  less  important  forums  might  be  mentioned. 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE 


301 


THE    EASTERN    SECTION    OF    MEDLEVAL 
CONSTANTINOPLE 

EXPLANATION    OF    THE    CHART 


18 

The  Great  Palace  and  its  De- 

25 

pendencies 

26 

1 

The  Chrysotriklinon 

27 

2 

The  Triconchon 

28 

3 

The  Chalke 

29 

4 

The  Daphne 

5 

The  Open  and  Covered  Hippo- 

30 

dromes  of  the  Palace 

31 

6 

The  Manavra 

32 

7 

The  Nonniera 

33 

8 

The  Pentakoubouklon 

34 

9 

The  Porphyry  Palace 

35 

10 

The  Pharos 

11 

The  Monastery  of  the  Holy  Vir- 
gin the  Odeghetria 

36 

12 

The    Basilike    Pyle   or    Royal 

37 

Gate 

38 

13 

The  Aetos  or  Eagle 

39 

14 

The  Palace  of  Boncoleon 

40 

15 

The  Church  of  the  Saviour 

16 

The  Harbor  of  Boucoleon 

41 

17 

The  Gate  of  Michael  the  Proto- 

42 

vestiary 

43 

18 

The  Gate  of  the  Odeghetria 

44 

19 

The  Iron  Gate 

45 

20 

The  Palace  of  Justinian 

46 

21 

The  Gate  of  the  Lion 

22 

The  Church  of  Saints  Sergius 

47 

and  Bacchus 

AAAA 

23 

The  Baths  of  Xeuxippos 

24 

The  Monothyros  or  Portal 

The  Senate  House 

The  Palace  of  the  Patriarch 

Sancta  Sophia 

The  Milion 

The  Statue  of  Justinian  I  the 

Great 
The  Church  of  Saint  Stephen 
The  Palace  of  the  Kathisma 
The  Basilike  or  Royal  Cistern 
The  Cistern  of  Philoxenos 
The  Church  of  Saint  Anastasia 
The    Forum   of   Constantine   I 

the  Great 
The  Column  of  Constantine  I 

the  Great 
The  Triumphal  Way 
The  Church  of  Saint  Irene 
The  Hospital  of  Samson 
The   Column   of  Theodosius  I 

the  Great 
The  Gate  of  Saint  Barbara 
The  Mangana 
The  Gate  of  Eugenius 
The  Neoria 

The  Gate  of  the  Neorion 
The    Gate    of    Perama,  or  the 

Crossing 
The  Baptistery  of  Sancta  Sophia 
Territory    in   1468  included  in 

the  Seraglio 


THE  GOLDEN  WM 


**«!>>, 


THE  MARMORA 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  303 


An  absolute  essential  in  all  topographical  study  is  that  it  be  prose- 
cuted by  the  investigator  on  the  ground  he  describes.  Otherwise  lie 
is  almost  certain  to  ignore  differences  in  elevation  or  accessibility,  to 
miss  some  ancient  ruin  or  landmark  which  may  serve  as  an  unerring 
guide,  and  to  create  distances  which  do  not  exist,  or  to  disregard  those 
which  do.  The  otherwise  scholarly  and  careful  work  of  M.  Jules 
Labarte  on  "Le  palais  imperial  de  Constantinople  et  ses  abords,  le 
Forum  Augustseum  et  1' Hippodrome,  tels  qu'ils  existaient  au  dixieme 
siecle  "  (Paris,  1861),  affords  a  striking  illustration  of  this  truth. 

M.  Labarte  never  visited  Constantinople.  Consequently,  though 
learned  and  conscientious,  he  commits  errors  which  an  intelligent 
walk  across  the  Atmei'dan  would  have  prevented,  and  which  vitiate 
his  entire  work.  For  example,  he  says,  "  The  obelisque  of  granite 
and  the  obelisque  of  stone,  which  give  us  the  direction  of  the  grand 
axis  of  the  Hippodrome,  are,  with  the  serpent  column,  the  only  exist- 
ing vestiges  of  the  Hippodrome."  Thus  he  shows  himself  unaware 
of  the  enormous,  still  preserved  foundations  of  the  sphendone,  which 
give  both  the  southern  limit  and  the  exact  breadth  of  the  Hippo- 
drome. Hence,  in  estimating  its  width,  he  makes  an  error  of  about 
two  hundred  feet. 

A  still  greater  mistake  —  one  which  destroys  the  value  of  much 
which  he  sa}7s  concerning  the  situation  of  the  Augustreum  and  the 
Great  Palace  —  is  that  he  reckons  the  grand  axis  of  the  Hippodrome 
as  six  hundred  and  seventy-three  feet  distant  from  the  nearest  parallel 
side  of  Sancta  Sophia,  an  exaggeration  of  over  four  hundred  feet. 
On  this  four  hundred  feet  of  distance  gained  on  paper  as  width  and 
of  indefinite  length,  but  non-existent  in  fact,  depends  his  localization 
of  the  Augusta?um  and  of  the  Great  Palace.  The  buildings,  assigned 
by  him  and  his  disciples  to  those  non-existent  feet,  are  built  literally 
upon  the  air.  Yet,  till  the  Bi>£ayTim  'AvaKropa,  "The  Byzantine 
Palaces,"  of  Dr  Paspatis  appeared  in  1886,  the  treatise  of  M.  Labarte 
was  the  chief  and  almost  the  only  authority  on  the  subject. 

I  do  not  claim  absolute  accuracy  for  the  accompanying  chart.  It 
very  largely  corresponds  with  the  map  drawn  by  Dr  Paspatis,  with 
whom  it  was  my  privilege  many  times  to  go  over  the  locality.  It 
answers  the  descriptions  of  the  Byzantine  authors.  The  probability 
of  its  exactness  is  fortified  by  various  mediaeval  remains  still  visible, 
—  some  hidden  in  Turkish  gardens  and  in  the  foundations  and  even 
the  cellars  of  Turkish  houses,  several  of  which  T  think  no  Europeans 
have  seen  except  Dr  Paspatis  and  myself.  It  conforms,  moreover,  to 
every  physical  requirement  of  the  ground. 


31U  COXSTAXTJXOPLE 


THE  PALACES 


Xo  less  than  thirty-seven  palaces  can  be  enumerated, 
erected,  or  inhabited  by  members  of  the  imperial  family. 
All,  even  the  Palace  of  Blachernai,  were  dwarfed  in  im- 
mensity and  importance  by  the  Mega  Palation,  or  Great 
Palace.  This  was  a  sort  of  Byzantine  Kremlin.  It  spread 
over  an  enormous  area ;  was  built  by  many  sovereigns  at 
different  periods,  through  a  duration  of  over  eight  hun- 
dred years,  and  consisted  of  residences,  churches,  porticos, 
offices,  barracks,  baths,  and  gardens :  the  whole  agglom- 
eration was  surrounded  by  massive  parapeted  walls,  which 
were  further  fortified  by  towers.  In  its  entirety,  the  three 
ideas  of  habitation,  devotion,  and  defence  seemed  equally 
blended. 

The  Great  Palace  proper  —  that  is,  the  main  central 
edifice  —  was  begun  by  Constantine,  and  was  his  favorite 
residence.  Justinian  and  subsequent  emperors  enlarged 
and  embellished  the  original  structure.  Few  of  its  edifices 
were  included  in  the  modern  grounds  of  the  Seraglio,  to 
which  its  gardens  were  little  inferior  in  extent,  but  reached 
in  irregular  succession  farther  south  to  the  Marmora. 

The  Great  Palace  comprised  two  classes  of  buildings,  — 
palaces  so  connected  by  covered  passages  as  to  form  prac- 
tically one  architectural  whole,  to  which  the  name  "  the 
Palace  "  was  properly  applied,  and  palaces  standing  iso- 
lated and  distinct. 

The  former,  composed  of  three  main  parts,  —  Chryso- 
triklinon,  Trikonchon,  and  Daphne,  —  was  often  called,  in 
the  reverent  language  of  the  Greeks,  the  "  Sacred,"  or 
"  God-guarded  Palace."  Imagination,  rather  than  descrip- 
tion, must  set  forth  the  gorgeousness  and  magnificence  of 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  805 

structures  wherein  all  the  arts  united  to  exalt  and  masr- 
nify  imperial  power.  In  the  endless  succession  of  those 
vast  chambers  and  halls,  all  glittering  with  gold,  mosaic, 
and  rarest  marble,  it  seemed  as  if  human  resource  and 
invention  could  achieve  nothing  more  in  overpowering 
gorgeousness  and  splendor. 

The  Chrysotriklinon,  or  Golden  Hall,  was  erected  by 
Justin  II  in  570.  Here  was  the  imperial  throne  shaded 
by  the  tree  of  solid  gold,  devised  by  the  Emperor  The- 
ophilos.  Entering  through  silver  doors,  ambassadors  and 
foreign  princes  here  beheld  the  most  minute  and  brilliant 
ceremonial  observed  at  any  court.  It  is  to  this  palace 
that  Constantine  VIII  Porphyrogenitus  constantly  refers 
in  his  prolix  descriptions  of  Byzantine  etiquette.  The 
Trikonchon  —  the  work  of  Theophilos  in  839  —  was 
named  from  its  three  spreading  apses,  wherein  were 
ranged  elaborate  columns  of  Roman  marble.  With  it 
were  connected  the  chambers  of  the  Sigma,  —  a  pavilion 
rather  than  a  palace,  —  with  its  roof  everywhere  upheld 
by  marble  pillars.  The  Daphne  was  a  mass  of  heteroge- 
neous buildings,  all  constructed  by  Constantine  and  re- 
stored by  Justinian  after  the  Revolt  of  the  Nika.  It 
derived  its  name  from  a  diviner's  column,  brought  thither 
from  a  grove  of  Daphne  or  Apollo,  where  it  had  been 
formerly  worshipped.  In  these  apartments  the  sovereign 
was  always  robed  and  crowned  before  participating  in  the 
great  solemnities.  All  these  edifices  were  situated  south- 
east of  the  Augustgeum,  and  south  of  Sancta  Sophia,  their 
sites  being  partly  included  in  the  yard  of  the  Mosque  of 
Sultan  Achmet. 

The  isolated  or  disconnected  palaces  were  numerous. 
The  Chalke,  or  the  Brazen,  built  by  Zeno  in  479,  and  soon 
after  restored   by  Anastasios   I,   was  so  called  from  the 

vol.  i.  — 20 


306  CONSTANTINOPLE 

I »rass  plates  covering  its  roof.  It  is  constantly  on  the  lips 
of  the  Byzantine  authors.  A  vast  vestibule,  or  portal, 
rather  than  a  residence,  it  gave  access  to  the  Augustseum. 
On  its  eastern  door  was  the  long-wrangled-over  picture  of 
Christ,  which  Leo  III  destroyed.  Thereupon  a  riot  broke 
out.  and  many  people  were  killed.  Then  Leo  replaced  it 
by  a  cross.  Irene  afterwards  consecrated  on  the  door  a 
Christ  in  mosaic,  which  Leo  V,  the  Armenian,  bade  his 
followers  tear  down  and  destroy,  and  which,  under  Theo- 
dora, the  paralytic  artist,  Leo,  in  842  miraculously  re- 
stored. The  veil,  drawn  before  this  mosaic  picture,  was 
believed  to  have  cured  Alexios  I  Komnenos  in  a  sickness 
otherwise  fatal.  The  Chalke,  despite  all  its  glitter  and 
its  imperial  memories,  in  the  thirteenth  century  was  con- 
verted into  a  prison. 

Farther  north  was  the  Palace  of  Manavra,  ranking  next 
to  the  Chrysotriklinon,  built  by  Constantine,  and  rebuilt 
by  Leo  VI.  From  its  balcony  annually,  on  the  first  Mon- 
day in  Lent,  the  Emperor  addressed  the  people,  and  ex- 
horted them  to  keep  the  Fast.  Still  farther  north  was  the 
Eagle  Palace,  fancifully  named  from  its  elevated  or  eyried 
situation  inside  the  present  Seraglio  grounds,  near  the  site 
of  the  Bab-i-Humayoun.     Basil  I  was  its  founder. 

Most  remote  and  most  northern  of  all  was  the  Palace 
of  Boucoleon,  bucca  leonis,  the  Lion's  Mouth,  lying  along 
the  seashore,  over  three  hundred  feet  in  length  and  sixty 
broad.  It  is  of  unfrequent  mention  before  the  time  of 
Nikephoros  II  Phokas.  He  restored  it  on  an  imposing 
scale  in  909,  and  sought  by  massive  walls  to  render  it 
impregnable.  But  the  first  night  he  slept  therein  in  fan- 
cied security  he  was  murdered  by  John  Zimiskes  and 
other  conspirators,  whom,  at  the  instigation  of  his  wife, 
traitorous  maid-servants  drew  up  in  baskets  over  the  wall. 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  307 

When  the  Latin  Crusaders  sacked  Constantinople,  they 
found  in  this  palace,  according  to  the  na'ive  expression  of 
Villehardouin,  "  the  most  beautiful  women  in  the  world," 
who  had  fled  there  for  refuge.  The  harbor  of  Boucoleon, 
with  its  imperial  landing-place,  guarded  by  marble  lions, 
was  farther  south. 

The  rectangular  Porphyry  Palace,  with  its  pyramidal 
roof,  was  more  southward  still.  The  rich  red  porphyry 
covering  its  walls  and  floors  had  been  brought  from 
Rome.  It  was  sacred  to  imperial  motherhood.  Built  by 
Constantine,  he  ordered  by  special  decree  that  there  the 
empresses,  free  from  the  responsibilities  and  tedium  of 
the  Sacred  Palace,  might  in  peace  bring  forth  their  off- 
spring. All  born  in  its  august  seclusion  were  called 
Porphyrogeniti . 

The  Pentakoubouklon,  close  by,  is  memorable  for  its 
churches  of  Saint  Barbara,  erected  by  Leo  VI,  and  of 
Saint  Paul,  built  by  Basil  I,  both  painted  by  the  artist 
hand  of  Constantine  VIII  Porphyrogenitus.  The  oft- 
referred-to  Noumera  was  not  a  palace,  but  a  prison.  The 
solid  Byzantine  arches  still  visible  in  the  Ottoman  quarter 
of  Ak  Buyouk  Mahalleh  were  doubtless  part  of  its  founda- 
tions. Close  to  the  Chrysotriklinon,  towards  the  south, 
was  the  Pharos,  whose  ruins  are  identified  in  the  great 
mass  of  stone  and  mortar  west  of  Achor  Kapou.  The 
palaces  were  generally  vaulted,  built  of  stone  or  marble, 
usually  but  one  story  high,  and  covered  with  brazen  plates 
or  leaden  roofs. 

The  twenty-eight  churches  and  chapels  included  might 
well  satisfy  all  the  needs  of  imperial  piety.  Their  clergy 
were  subordinate  to  the  Protopappas,  or  High  Priest  of 
the  Palace.  The  imperial  family  usually  worshipped  in 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Virgin  at  the  Pharos.     The  Church 


308  CONSTANTINOPLE 

of  the  Saviour  Christ  in  the  Chalke  was  erected  by  John  T 
Zimiskes,  and  was  his  mausoleum.  The  Church  of  the 
Holy  Virgin  of  Boucoleon  possessed  several  highly  re- 
vered relics,  supposed  to  be  connected  with  the  Passion : 
they  were  all  carried  to  France  in  1234.  The  most  splen- 
did of  all  these  churches  was  the  New  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ,  erected  by  Basil  I,  and  still  further  embellished 
by  Isaac  Angelos.  To  it  were  brought  the  exquisitely 
wrought  bronze  doors  which  had  been  the  chief  ornament 
of  Constantine's  Forum. 

The  Latin  emperors  resided  alternately  at  the  Palace 
of  Blachernai  and  the  Palace  of  Boucoleon,  neglect  in  2; 
all  the  rest  of  the  Great  Palace.  It  was  almost  aban- 
doned, and  was  rarely  visited  by  their  successors,  the 
Palaiologoi.  Its  stately  edifices  fell  in  successive  ruin, 
and  were  seldom  restored.  Sultan  Mohammed  II,  on  his 
triumphal  entry,  came  hither  direct  from  Sancta  Sophia. 
Awed  by  the  stillness  and  desolation,  he  repeated  the 
distich  of  the  Persian  poet  Saacli :  — 

"  The  spider  is  the  curtain-holder  in  the  Palace  of  the  Caesars: 
The  owl  hoots  its  night-call  on  the  Towers  of  Aphrasiab. " 

The  Ottomans  built  its  scattered  remnants  into  the 
walls  and  kiosks  of  the  Seraglio.  A  few  nameless,  form- 
less, disconnected  heaps  of  masonry  are  the  sole  vestiges 
of  the  resplendent,  the  "  God-guarded  Palace." 

While  the  Great  Palace  tumbled  to  destruction,  the 
Palace  of  Blachernai,  in  the  distant  northwest  corner  of 
the  city,  centred  the  latter-day  glories  and  miseries  of 
the  imperial  Byzantine  family.  During  the  last  four 
centuries  of  the  Empire  it  was  the  residence  of  the  Dukas, 
Komnenos,  Angelos,  and  Palaiologos  dynasties.  The 
meaning  of  the  name  Blachernai  is  a  mystery.    Beginning 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  309 

in  a  tiny  church  founded  in  the  fifth  century  outside  the 
walls  by  the  Empress  Pulcheria,  to  which  a  summer-house 
was  added  by  Anastasius  I,  the  group  of  edifices  constantly 
enlarged  during  six  hundred  years.  For  its  protection 
Heraklios  constructed  the  lofty  wall  with  monstrous 
towers,  which  reaches  from  Tekour  Serai  to  the  Golden 
Horn.  It  monopolized  the  entire  northern  portion  of  the 
city,  and  even  the  bridge  spanning  the  Golden  Horn  was 
the  Bridge  of  the  Blachernai.  Apparently  impregnable 
in  its  overawing  strength,  the  name  "  Palace  "  was  disre- 
garded, and  the  whole  was  called  "  the  Fortress,"  or  "the 
Bulwark  of  the  Blachernai."  Manuel  Komnenos  greatly 
increased  its  size,  and  so  lavishly  embellished  its  walls 
with  mosaic  pictures  of  his  martial  exploits  that  the  pa- 
tient Jewish  traveller,  Benjamin  of  Toledo,  in  1173,  find- 
ing one  face  everywhere,  reckoned  Manuel  its  founder. 
Isaac  Angelos,  with  superfluous  vigilance,  still  further 
fortified  its  front  with  the  castle-like  tower  which  bears 
his  name. 

This  palace  is  frequently  referred  to  by  the  historians  of 
the  Crusades.  Greek  astuteness  and  Western  chivalry 
fought  their  unequal  duel  beneath  its  roof.  Here,  in  his 
march  towards  the  Holy  Land,  Peter  the  Hermit  received 
from  the  hands  of  Alexios  I  Komnenos  two  hundred  and 
twenty  gold  byzants  for  himself  and  a  smaller  gratuity  for 
each  man  in  his  host.  Here,  one  year  later,  Godfrey  of 
Bouillon  and  the  intrepid  chieftains  of  the  First  Crusade 
paid  homage  to  the  same  monarch  for  their  prospective 
conquests.  Says  Albert  d'Aix,  "  Kneeling  down,  bending 
their  bodies,  they  kissed  the  hand  of  that  glorious  and 
puissant  Emperor."  Here  the  avaricious  Bohemond  of 
Tarentum  acquired  what  to  him  was  worth  more  than 
glory.     To  him  was  "  shown  a  room  heaped  with  most 


310  CONSTANTINOPLE 

precious  things,  —  gold,  silver  plate,  silks,  and  everything 
that  was  costly  ;  then  when  he  cried,  *  How  many  cities 
and  kingdoms  might  I  not  conquer  with  this  wealth !  '  the 
Emperor  bestowed  all  these  treasures  upon  Bohemond." 
From  this  palace  in  120o  the  usurper  Alexios  III  Angelos, 
trembling,  watched  the  first  attack  of  the  Fourth  Crusade ; 
in  one  of  its  dark  subterranean  chambers  his  successor, 
the  boy  Alexios  IV,  was  murdered. 

The  Latin  emperors  revelled  in  its  halls  more  than  half 
a  century,  and  when  at  last  expelled,  they  left  the  palace 
in  so  foul  a  state  that  "  its  cleansing  was  a  mighty  work." 
It  was  the  scene  and  centre  of  the  unnatural  rivalry  of 
the  aged  Andronikos  II  and  his  grandson  Andronikos  III ; 
when  the  latter  won  and  the  septuagenarian  sovereign 
was  driven  out,  herds  of  horses,  asses,  and  oxen,  and 
flocks  of  poultry  were  chased  in  derision  through  the 
spacious  rooms,  and  washerwomen  plied  their  craft  in  the 
Imperial  Fountain  in  the  palace  court.  Here  were  held 
in  1351  sessions  of  that  supplementary  Council  which 
wrangled  over  the  heresy  of  Balaam  and  the  uncreated 
light  of  Tabor,  thereby  in  a  later  age  affording  point  for 
the  sharpened  satire  of  Gibbon.  Here  —  overmastering 
association  of  all  —  were  the  headquarters  of  the  ill-fated 
Constantine  all  through  the  final  siege. 

Numerous  disconnected  masses  of  stone  and  mortar, 
half  buried  in  Ottoman  gardens,  or  built  into  the  founda- 
tions of  Ottoman  houses,  enable  one  with  partial  accuracy 
to  trace  the  general  outline  and  extent  of  the  palace  for- 
tifications. We  know  that  the  Grand  Gate,  which  af- 
forded access  through  the  outer  wall,  stood  not  far  from 
the  still  cherished  Ayasma  of  the  Blachernai.  The  neigh- 
boring uncouth  stone  structure,  now  surmounted  by  a  dilap- 
idated dome,  may,  as  is  commonly  believed,  have  had  some 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  311 

connection  with  the  Blachern  public  bath.  The  venerable 
plane-tree,  to  this  day  vigorous  and  majestic,  outside  the 
gate  of  A'ivaz  Effendi  Djami,  must,  four  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  have  shaded  some  portion  of  the  palace  with 
its  widespreading  arms.  The  time-swept  site  is  now  diffi- 
cult of  access,  so  suspicious  of  every  stranger  are  the 
present  fanatical  inhabitants  of  the  region.  But  of  that  im- 
perial dwelling,  whose  splendor  dazzled  the  Crusaders  and 
swelled  the  pride  of  the  Byzantines,  a  single  undoubted 
relic  is  left,  —  the  sinuous,  repulsive  shape  of  one  of  its 
larger  drains. 

THE   CHUECHES 

Constantinople  was  pre-eminently  a  city  of  churches. 
With  pious  faith  the  modern  Greek  consecrates  in  every 
house  a  chamber  or  an  alcove  for  devotion.  In  like  manner 
his  Byzantine  ancestors  set  up  a  sanctuary  in  every  spot, 
beautiful  for  situation,  wherever  there  were  worshippers 
to  come.  Paspatis  gives  the  names  of  three  hundred  and 
ninety-two ;  Du  Cange  enumerates  four  hundred  and 
twenty-eight,  and  Gedeon  four  hundred  and  sixty-three. 
Twenty-four  were  dedicated  to  some  attribute  of  the 
Deity ;  sixty-four  to  the  Holy  Virgin ;  twenty-two  to 
archangels ;  eighteen  to  Saint  John  the  Baptist ;  nine  to 
prophets ;  thirty-five  to  apostles ;  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
five  to  other  saints  and  martyrs ;  ninety-five  were  con- 
nected with  monasteries. 

Without  peer  or  rival  in  material  grandeur  or  varied 
association  was  Sancta  Sophia,  whose  hallowed  pile  is  pre- 
served to  this  day. 

Second  in  rank,  size,  and  magnificence,  was  the  Church 
of  the  Holy  Apostles,  which  Manasses  quaintly  calls  "  the 


312  CONSTANTINOPLE 

silver-lighted  moon  among  the  churches,  second  only  to  the 
lustrous  sun  of  Sancta  Sophia."  It  was  the  creation  of  Con- 
stantine,  dedicated  by  him  to  the  Holy  Trinity.  When, 
thirty  years  later,  remains  regarded  as  those  of  Saints 
Timothy,  Andrew,  and  Luke,  were  enshrined  under  its 
altar,  it  was  henceforth  railed  Church  of  the  Holy  Apostles. 
Superstitious  reverence  believed  that  among  its  opulence  of 
relics  were  the  body  of  Saint  Matthias,  some  garments  of 
the  Apostles,  the  head  of  James  the  Lord's  brother,  the 
hand  of  Saint  Euphemia ;  later  still  were  added  the  un- 
doubted remains  of  the  patriarchs  Saint  John  Chrysostom, 
Gregory  the  Theologian,  Flavian,  and  Methodios  the  Con- 
fessor. It  was  rich  no  les§  in  diamonds,  gems,  and  im- 
perial crowns  ;  its  sacred  vessels  of  gold  and  silver  were 
almost  countless,  and  only  the  rarest  and  most  costly 
materials  were  employed  in  its  construction. 

The  earthquake,  the  mediaeval  scourge  of  Constanti- 
nople, threw  it  down.  Its  restoration  in  the  form  of  a 
cross  was  at  once  begun  by  Theodora,  who  did  not  live, 
however,  to  witness  its  re-consecration.  In  its  prodigious 
dome,  vast  but  windowless,  it  somewhat  resembled  Sancta 
Sophia.  Its  roof,  rising  high  in  form  of  a  pyramid,  was 
sheathed  in  glittering  plates  of  brass.  Justin  II  and 
Basil  I  sought  to  enrich  and  embellish  it  still  more,  and 
it  was  again  magnificently  restored  by  Andronikos  II. 
When  the  Concpieror  devoted  Sancta  Sophia  to  Islam,  he 
granted  the  Holy  Apostles  to  the  Christians  as  their  Patri- 
archal Church.  In  14 oO  the  corpse  of  a  murdered  Otto- 
man was  found  lying  across  the  threshold.  In  terror  the 
Christians  sought  and  obtained  permission  to  transfer  the 
Patriarchal  See  to  the  humble  monastic  Church  of  Pam- 
makaristos.  When  Mohammed  II  determined  upon  the 
erection    of   his    Mosque,   he    demolished    the    abandoned 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  313 

church.  Not  the  slightest  remains  of  it  now  exist,  while 
on  its  site  rise  the  austere  minarets  of  the  Conqueror. 

Its  old-time  prominence  must  be  sought  neither  in  its 
sacred  character  as  a  sanctuary,  nor  in  its  architectural 
grandeur.  From  its  origin  it  was  the  imperial  mausoleum. 
By  special  enactments  the  Emperors  Valentinian,  Gratian, 
and  Theodosius  I  forbade  that  any  save  Patriarchs  and 
members  of  the  imperial  household  should  be  buried  in 
its  jealous  precincts.  The  later  rulers  respected  these 
early  edicts ;  for  almost  nine  hundred  years  its  sepulchral 
chambers  were  reserved  to  the  sovereign  and  the  pontiff. 
In  less  than  two  centuries  the  mortuary  chapel  or  Heroon 
of  Constantine  near  the  entrance  was  so  crowded  with  the 
exalted  dead  that  another  was  required.  This  was  erected 
by  Justinian,  and  called  by  his  name. 

The  careful  historian,  who  in  the  eleventh  century  wrote 
under  the  name  of  Anonymos,  has  handed  down  with 
minute  particularity  a  list  of  the  imperial  dead  who  up  to 
his  day  had  been  gathered  within  its  walls ;  he  has  more- 
over given  a  brief  description  of  the  sarcophagus  of  each 
sceptred  tenant.  These  sarcophagi  were  placed  on  stands 
a  little  distance  above  the  floor.  The  Byzantine  citizen 
was  free  to  enter  these  Heroons  and  to  wander  among  his 
sleeping  sovereigns,  separated  from  one  another  and  from 
him  only  by  the  thin  walls  of  their  marble  coffins.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  so  many  crowned  corpses,  repre- 
senting so  long  duration  and  so  much  influence  on  human 
destiny,  have  ever  elsewhere  been  grouped  in  the  intimacy 
of  any  other  mausoleum  in  Europe.  As  the  visitor  trod 
the  pavement  he  might  reconstitute  his  national  Byzantine 
history  from  its  imperial  origin.  Some  with  a  right  to 
sleep  in  that  high  company  were  absent;  but  they  who 
had  most  shaped  their  Empire's  erratic  course,  Christian, 


314 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


apostate,  iconoclast,  image  worshipper,  devotee  or  de- 
bauchee, alike  were  there.  Robed  and  crowned,  Constan- 
tine, Theodosius,  Justinian,  Heraklios,  Basil ;  the  imperial 

consorts  and  saints,  Helena. 
Pulcheria,  Theophano  ;  and 
other  imperial  wives  though 
unsaintly,  Theodora,  Sophia, 
Eudoxia,  were  shut  only  by 
the  narrow  coffin-rim  from 
the  gaze  of  the  visitor  and 
of  the  world.  Yet  even  in 
the  democracy  of  death 
creed  was  not  forgotten. 
Close  together,  but  a  space 
apart  from  the  orthodox 
sleepers,  were  grouped,  as 
if  eternally  abhorred,  the 
coffins  of  Julian  and  of  the 
four  Arian  emperors.  Time 
cannot  hush  the  voice  of 
religious  rancor.  Even  the 
historian  Anonymos,  else- 
where so  dignified  and  calm, 
when  describing  the  sarco- 
phagus wherein  lay  the  last 
kinsman  of  Constantine  and 
the  pupil  of  the  Academy, 
exclaims,  "  In  this  was  placed  the  execrable  carcass  of 
Julian  the  Apostate." 

The  successive  emperors  generally  preserved  the  ashes 
of  their  predecessors  from  profanation.  The  infamous 
Michael  III,  however,  burned  in  the  Hippodrome  the  bones 
of  Constantine  V  Kopronymos,  and  converted  his  sarcopha- 


BASIL   II   BuLGAROKTONOS 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  315 

gus  into  lime,  which  was  afterward  employed  in  the  ordi- 
nary uses  of  the  palace.  During  the  reign  of  Alexios  III 
Angelos,  many  of  the  sarcophagi  were  broken  open  and 
robbed,  presumably  by  the  sovereign's  order  and  for  his 
financial  benefit.  Still,  till  1204  most  of  the  dead  em- 
perors reposed  in  peace.  That  year  the  Latin  Crusaders, 
after  their  conquest,  with  sacrilegious  greed  stripped  all 
the  dead  bones  of  every  ornament  and  cast  them  into  the 
street.  The  historian  Niketas  Choniates,  who  was  then 
alive,  states  that  the  remains  of  Justinian  the  Great  were 
found  in  almost  perfect  preservation,  though  he  had  been 
dead  six  hundred  and  thirty-nine  years. 

To-day  various  imperial  sarcophagi  are  scattered  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  city.  Broken  and  empty,  their  history 
has  vanished  like  the  ashes  they  contained ;  and,  despite 
all  the  details  of  Anonymos,  not  one  can  be  identified 
with  certainty. 

The  Church  of  the  Holy  Virgin  of  the  Blachernai  held  a 
peculiar  and  distinctive  place  in  Byzantine  life.  It  was 
indeed  always  eclipsed  by  the  peerless  cathedral  Sancta 
Sophia,  and  was  outshone  in  splendor  and  sanctity  by  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Apostles.  But  in  later  popularity  and 
magnificence  it  shared  the  brilliant  destiny  of  the  Blachern 
quarter.  Nor  was  it  a  mere  companion  or  dependence  of 
royal  fortunes.  Here  the  palace  was  the  result  or  child 
of  the  sanctuary.  The  former  sprang  from  the  latter, 
and  grew  around  it  as  a  focal  centre.  The  rural,  fifth- 
century  church  of  Pnlcheria,  like  a  magnet,  caused  to 
cluster  about  itself  through  six  hundred  years  cottages 
and  fortresses,  and  at  last  the  official  imperial  residence. 
Even  before  the  First  Crusade,  the  Great  Palace  of  Con- 
stantine  had  begun  to  fall  into  ruin  and  oblivion,  being 
gradually  deserted  for  its  newer  and  more  pretentious  rival. 


316  CONSTANTINOPLE 

After  the  definite  removal  hither  of  the  imperial  abode,  and 
throughout  the  last  four  and  a  half  centuries  of  the  Em- 
pire, the  Church  of  the  Blachernai  was  the  temple  wherein 
the  sovereign  and  his  court  offered  their  stately  worship. 

The  original  church  of  Pulcheria  had  been  enlarged 
and  magnificently  decorated  by  Justin  I,  the  uncle  of 
Justinian  the  Great.  Burned  in  the  eleventh  century,  it 
had  been  rebuilt  by  Romanos  III  Argyros  on  a  scale  com- 
mensurate with  the  pageantry  of  imperial  devotion.  Its 
gorgeousness  was  in  keeping  with  its  rank,  and  with  the 
ritual  of  that  ancient  church  which  has  always  sought  to 
astound  and  bewilder  the  eye.  One  mediaeval  author 
wrote,  "  The  Church  of  the  Blachernai  is  as  much  more 
resplendent  than  all  other  churches  as  is  the  sun  superior 
to  all  the  other  lights  of  heaven." 

Here  was  kept  the  robe  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  which  the  patricians  Galbius  and  Candidus,  in 
459,  had  erected  their  massive  and  still  standing  church. 
In  the  same  sacristy  was  revered  the  Virgin's  mantle, 
which,  in  Byzantine  belief,  a  constant  miracle  protected 
against  natural  decay,  and  which  likewise  rendered  invul- 
nerable whoever  put  it  on.  It  was  the  sole  breastplate  of 
Romanos  I  Lekapenos  in  926,  and  to  its  supernatural  agency 
he  attributed  his  escape  from  harm  in  his  desperate  wars 
with  Simeon,  King  of  the  Bulgarians.  The  church  was 
thronged  with  an  unceasing  crowd,  eager  to  pay  their 
homage  to  these  relics  ;  in  consequence,  its  fame  and 
wealth  enormously  increased.  Even  the  day  on  which 
the  sacred  garments  were  confided  to  its  keeping  was  com- 
memorated by  an  annual  and  solemn  festival.  So  large 
was  the  edifice  that  its  services  taxed  to  the  utmost  its 
seventy-four  priests,  deacons,  deaconesses,  and  chanters. 

In   the   edifice  of   Justin,    Constantine  V  Kopronymos 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  317 

held  the  last  session  of  his  Council  in  754,  and  was  greeted 
at  its  conclusion  by  his  followers'  enthusiastic  shout, 
"  To-day  safety  to  the  world,  because  thou,  0  Emperor, 
hast  delivered  mankind  from  idols !  " 

Long  before  the  Blachern  quarter  had  become  the  rec- 
ognized chief  residence  of  the  sovereign,  three  times  a 
year  the  Patriarch  came  hither  to  officiate  at  its  altar,  and 
the  Emperor,  Senate,  and  Court  assembled  beneath  its 
roof  to  participate  in  the  liturgy.  Even  the  manner  in 
which  the  monarch  and  the  pontiff  should  issue  from 
their  palaces,  and  the  route  their  processions  should  follow 
across  the  city,  and  the  hour  of  their  arrival,  and  the  par- 
ticulars of  their  reception,  were  prescribed  with  minute 
and  inflexible  details.  All  the  subsequent  ceremonies, 
both  ecclesiastical  and  imperial,  were  as  solemn  and  awe- 
inspiring  as  piety  and  trained  invention  could  devise. 
The  whole  was  terminated  in  a  characteristic  Byzantine 
way.  Closely  connected  with  the  church  was  the  chapel 
of  the  Ayasma,  or  Holy  Fountain.  When  the  official 
religious  service  in  the  larger  sanctuary  was  concluded, 
the  Emperor  entered  an  adjacent  chamber,  and  was  there 
entirely  disrobed  by  the  eunuchs,  who  then  wrapped 
around  him  the  lention,  or  gilded  tunic.  Forthwith  he 
descended  to  the  chapel  and  prayed  before  the  icons.  On 
completion  of  his  prayer,  he  bathed  in  the  fountain,  and 
was  robed  by  his  chamberlains  in  readiness  for  departure. 

As  he  descended  the  church  steps,  he  was  met  by  twelve 
water-carriers  who  had  been  selected  by  the  master  of 
ceremonies,  and  to  each  of- whom  he  gave  two  pieces  of 
gold,  "  always  received  with  ecstasy." 

In  1434  some  young  nobles,  while  chasing  pet  pigeons 
which  had  flown  into  the  church,  accidentally  set  it  on 
fire,  and  it  was  utterly  consumed.     The  destruction  of  this 


318 


COXSTA  XTIXOPLK 


guardian  sanctuary  seemed,  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  to 
presage  that  dire  calamity  to  the  Empire  which  was  in 
store.  In  the  universal  penury,  it  was  impossible  to 
rebuild  the  church.  At  the  Conquest,  nineteen  years  after- 
wards, its  site  and  all  the  neighboring  territory  were 
divided  among  the  conquerors.  Not  a  single  vestige  was 
visible   in  the   following  century.     A  hundred  years  ago 


Holy  Fountain  of  the  Blachernai 

the  locality  was  occupied  by  gypsies  who  had  abandoned 
their  nomadic  habits.  But  the  water  always  flowed  in 
the  unfailing  ayasina,  and  the  owner  of  the  spot  derived  a 
generous  income  from  Christians  who  paid  for  the  privi- 
lege of  coming  there  to  pray.  Finally,  the  guild  of  the 
furriers,  at  large  expense,  purchased  the  adjacent  ground. 
They  endeavored  to  erect  a  tiny  church,  which  should  be 
the  exact  counterpart  of  the  Chapel  of  the  Ayasina.  In 
digging  for  the  foundations,  they  discovered  a  portion  of 
the  ancient  porphyry  floor. 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  319 

From  the  street  one  can  now  enter  the  grounds,  which 
are  of  small  extent  but  scrupulously  kept.  On  the  left, 
close  to  the  gate,  is  a  shapeless  mass  of  mediaeval  masonry 
which  formed  part  of  the  ancient  church.  Still  farther 
within  is  the  simple  modern  chapel,  preceded  by  a  narrow 
narthex.  Descending  a  few  steps  into  the  sanctuary 
proper  and  turning  to  the  left,  one  pauses  before  the 
Ayasma.  Pictured  on  the  wall,  in  colossal  proportions, 
the  benignant  Virgin,  always  beautiful  and  always  with 
the  child  Saviour  in  her  arms,  looks  down  upon  the  gazer. 
Under  one's  feet  is  the  rescued  pavement  which  in  other 
days  so  many  suppliants  trod.  This  is  the  very  spot  where 
the  Byzantine  emperors,  with  strange  mingling  of  exalted 
pomp  and  profound  humility,  performed  their  devotions. 


THE   HIPPODKOME 

The  Atme'idan  is  a  plain  familiar  to  every  resident  of 
Constantinople.  It  stretches  southward  on  the  left  hand 
of  the  main  highway  just  beyond  Sancta  Sophia.  On  its 
eastern  side  looms  up  the  six-minaretted  Mosque  of  Sultan 
Achmet.  Three  monuments,  an  Egyptian  obelisk,  a 
broken,  twisted  serpent,  and  a  crumbling  pillar  built  of 
stone,  stand  along;  its  central  line  like  tombstones  in  the 
graveyard  of  a  dead  past.  The  name  Atme'idan  is  the 
Turkish  translation  of  the  Greek  Hippodromos,  —  in  Eng- 
lish Hippodrome,  —  an  edifice  that  occupied  the  same  spot, 
and  embraced  in  all  a  territory  two  and  three-fourths  times 
as  large  as  the  present  Atme'idan. 

The  Hippodrome  of  Constantinople  was  world  renowned. 
By  its  vastness  it  dwarfed  every  other  building,  not  only 
in  Constantinople  but  throughout  the  Roman  East.     Its 


320  G02TS  TANTINOPLE 

direction  determined  that  of  every  other  edifice  in  its 
vicinity.  It  shaped  the  form  of  the  Augustseum;  com- 
pelled the  Great  Palace  to  lie  parallel  to  its  side ;  forced 
inflexible  Orthodoxy  to  incline  the  wall  of  its  holiest 
cathedral  so  that  its  nave  should  run  perpendicular  to 
the  Hippodrome,  and  not,  as  in  every  Eastern  church, 
from  west  to  east.  Its  immense  area  and  stupendous 
proportions  were  in  keeping  with  its  relative  impor- 
tance in  the  political  and  social  life  of  the  city.  Well 
does  Rambaud  exclaim,  "  The  axis  of  the  Hippodrome 
was  the  pivot  round  which  revolved  all  the  Byzantine 
world." 

Not  only  was  it  axis,  pivot,  centre,  of  the  circle,  but  it 
was  circumference  as  well.  It  bounded  all  and  included 
all.  Not  in  forum,  bath,  palace,  or  church,  but  in  the 
Hippodrome,  ancient  Constantinople  is  to  be  sought,  —  its 
individuality,  its  peculiarity,  its  eccentricity,  all  its  unre- 
strained, seething,  tumultuous  life.  The  entire  tragedy 
and  comedy  of  politics  was  there  enacted ;  all  human 
passion  there  had  unbridled  sway ;  the  veil,  worn  by  the 
Byzantine  at  every  other  hour  and  spot,  was  there  thrown 
aside,  and  the  populace,  capable  of  the  highest  and  the 
lowest,  and  by  turns  achieving  both,  revealed  itself  and 
wrote  its  record  as  nowhere  else. 

In  striving  to  recreate  the  Hippodrome  in  its  wide 
extent ;  to  reconstruct  its  walls  and  gates  and  ranges  of 
marble  seats  ;  to  re-array  its  precious  statues  and  works  of 
art ;  to  populate  it  once  again  with  the  men  and  factions 
that  thronged  its  benches,  and  to  re-enact  some  of  the 
scenes  which  have  there  had  place,  a  larger  end  is  sought 
than  the  resurrection  of  a  monument,  however  mighty, 
of  which  even  the  ruins  have  perished.  Its  descrip- 
tion   merits    and    demands    long    narration    and    minute 


— 


THE    THREE    EXISTING    MONUMENTS    OF    THE    HIPPODEOME 


322  COXSTAXTIXOPLE 

detail.  Thus  can  we  best  resuscitate  the  Constantinople 
of  long  ago. 

The  erection  of  the  Hippodrome  was  begun  by  the 
Emperor  Severus  in  203,  when  he  was  seeking  to  call 
again  into  existence  that  city  which  six  years  before  he 
had  ruthlessly  destroyed.  He  traced  the  entire  outline 
and  laid  most  of  its  foundations,  and  even  completed  the 
Sphendone,  or  semi-circular  portion,  on  the  south. 

Since  there  existed  in  the  vicinity  of  Byzantium  no  level 
ground  of  adequate  extent  to  serve  as  an  arena,  arches  had 
to  be  constructed  to  the  height  of  sixty  feet,  that  on  them 
the  foundations  of  the  Sphendone  might  be  placed.  This 
task  had  been  completed,  and  thereon  Severus  had  begun 
to  raise  the  southern  walls  and  to  adjust  the  marble 
benches,  when  he  was  called  away  to  quell  an  insurrection 
in  Britain. 

The  Hippodrome  remained  unfinished  and  neglected 
more  than  a  hundred  years.  Then  Constantine,  determin- 
ing to  make  Byzantium  the  capital  of  the  world,  pressed 
on  its  completion  with  restless  energy.  It  was  inaugu- 
rated with  the  utmost  pomp  by  the  Emperor  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  court,  senate,  army,  and  nation,  on  May  11, 
330,  the  natal  day  of  Constantinople,  the  dedicatory  rites 
of  which  were  mainly  celebrated  in  the  Hippodrome. 
The  public  squares  were  studded  with  the  accumulated 
art  treasures  of  the  Empire ;  but  it  was  the  Hippodrome 
which  afforded  the  most  imposing  stage  for  their  display, 
and  which  was  the  most  lavishly  adorned.  An  art  col- 
lection equally  rich  and  varied  the  world  has  never 
elsewhere  beheld,  before  or  since.  Along  the  promenade 
and  podium,  through  the  passages,  on  the  stretch  of  the 
spina,  —  everywhere  the  most  delicate  carvings  and  chisel- 
lings,  the  most  perfect  and  renowned  statues  of  antiquity 


ANCIENT  CONSTANTINOPLE  323 

then  existing,  fired  the  beholder's  admiration  and  bewil- 
dered his  gaze.  Nor  were  those  larger  creations  wanting 
which  overwhelm  rather  than  delight. 

The  names  and  subjects  of  many  wonders  gathered  in 
the  Hippodrome  wre  know,  though  but  a  small  proportion 
of  the  entire  number.  The  following  are  a  few  of  the 
more  famous :  The  Brazen  Eagle,  with  outspread  wings, 
that  seemed  to  fly,  clutching  a  serpent  in  its  talons,  —  in 
after  years  invested  by  vulgar  credulity  with  the  power  of 
expelling  serpents  from  the  city ;  the  Giant  Maiden,  hold- 
ing in  her  right  hand  a  life-sized  armed  horseman,  seated 
on  his  steed,  —  the  wdiole  so  perfectly  poised  that  horse  and 
rider  had  for  sole  support  the  maiden's  hand ;  the  Poi- 
soned Bull,  dying  in  torment,  while  one  half  listened  for 
the  death-roar;  the  She  Wolf  and  Hyena,  brought  from 
Antioch ;  the  Brazen  Ass  and  its  Driver  (this  was  the 
original,  —  the  Emperor  Augustus  had  deemed  a  copy  of 
it  a  worthy  votive  offering  to  set  up  in  Nicopolis  in  com- 
memoration of  his  decisive  victory  at  Actium  over  Mark 
Antony) ;  the  Calydonian  Boar  that  gnashed  its  tusk- 
less  mouth ;  the  Helen  of  Paris  and  Menelaus,  so  fatally 
fair  that  one  on  beholding  no  longer  wondered  at  the 
Trojan  War ;  eight  Sphinxes,  propounding  the  world's 
enigmas  according  to  the  conception  and  form  of  various 
lands ;  the  God  of  Wealth,  not  as  the  Greek  or  Roman 
master  but  as  the  Arabian  artist  conceived  him ;  the 
Enraged  Elephant,  so  monstrous  and  grotesque  that  chil- 
dren trembled  at  its  bulk  but  laughed  at  its  rage ;  the 
Wounded  Hero  struggling  with  a  Lion,  so  realistic  that  at 
first  glance  many  thought  the  hero  a  living  man ;  the 
Hercules,  disarmed  and  sorrowing,  the  bronze  masterpiece 
of  Lysippus,  of  so  colossal  size  that  a  man  of  ordinary 
height  reached  only  to  the  knee. 


324  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  most  widely  known  in  subsequent  history,  though 
by  no  means  the  most  beautiful  or  admirable,  were  four 
gilded  Steeds  of  Corinthian  brass,  perhaps  the  work  of 
Lysippus,  which  had  first  fronted  a  temple  in  Corinth. 
Thence  in  146  b.  c.  Mummius  brought  them  to  Rome  to 
adorn  the  Square  of  the  Senate ;  later  they  crowned  the 
Arch  of  Nero  and  of  Trajan,  whence  they  were  brought  by 
Constantine  to  Constantinople.  In  1204  they  were  sent  to 
Venice  by  the  robber  chieftains  of  the  Fourth  Crusade  as 
part  of  their  plunder.  The  victories  of  Napoleon  carried 
them  to  Paris  to  surmount  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  du 
Carrousel.  Since  1815  they  stand  as  guardians  over  the 
main  entrance  to  the  Venetian  Cathedral  of  Saint  Mark. 

During  the  seven  hundred  succeeding  years  additions  of 
groups  and  single  statues  were  constantly  made.  At  last, 
in  the  twelfth  century,  one  historian,  and  an  eye-witness, 
exclaims,  "  There  are  as  many  heroes,  emperors,  gods, 
along  the  seats  of  the  Hippodrome  as  there  are  living 
men."  But  the  later  contributions  added  rather  to  the 
sculptured  populousness  than  to  the  real  adornment  of  the 
Hippodrome.  It  became  a  walhalla  of  famous  and  heroic, 
even  of  common  forms,  rather  than  an  assemblage  of  ideal 
creations  exquisite  to  the  eye.  Emperors,  patriarchs,  mar- 
tyrs, saints,  generals,  patricians,  women  famous  for  their 
beauty,  rank,  or  virtue,  successful  charioteers,  physi- 
cians, teachers,  lawyers,  philosophers,  dwarfs  of  most 
wrinkled  face  or  most  stunted  stature,  and  eunuchs  of 
widest  influence,  were  immortalized  in  bronze  or  marble 
likeness  in  the  strange  assembly. 

To  ascertain  the  Hippodrome's  dimensions  certain  sure 
indications  exist.  From  the  Egyptian  obelisk,  still  in  its 
former  place  in  the  centre,  to  the  still  remaining  Sphen- 
done,  or  the  extreme  southern  limit,  —  that  is,  just  one-half 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  325 

the  length,  —  is  six  hundred  and  ninety-one  feet.  The 
width  of  the  Sphendone,  three  hundred  and  ninety-five 
feet,  is  the  ancient  width  of  the  Hippodrome.  Hence 
the  stupendous  structure  was  about  fourteen  hundred 
by  four  hundred  feet.  Its  length  was  three  and  a  half 
times  its  breadth,  the  exact  proportions  of  the  Circus 
Maximus  at  Rome.  Hence  the  entire  area  occupied 
five  hundred  and  thirty-five  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
sixty-six  square  feet,  or  twelve  and  three-tenths  acres.  Its 
direction  was  north  northeast,  deviating  thus  twenty-two 
and  a  half  degrees  from  a  due  north  and  south  line. 

The  internal  arrangement  and  appearance  of  the  Hippo- 
drome is  made  much  clearer  by  the  accompanying  chart. 
This  chart  is  not  a  copy  of  some  plan  found  elsewhere. 
In  fact,  no  plan  of  the  Hippodrome  that  I  have  anywhere 
seen,  answers,  in  my  opinion,  to  the  requirements  of  the 
Byzantine  authors,  or  to  the  picture  which  my  study  of 
the  subject  has  gradually  traced  in  my  mind. 

A  lengthy  structure,  reaching  almost  perpendicularly 
across,  terminated  the  Hippodrome  on  the  north.  The 
first  or  ground  floor  of  this  edifice  afforded  a  spacious 
magazine  of  whatever  appertained  to  the  games.  Here 
were  the  colonnaded  porticos  which  the  Romans  called 
Carceres  and  the  Greeks  Mangana.  Here  were  the  apart- 
ments of  the  attendants  and  servants,  the  storehouses  of 
the  chariots,  the  stalls  of  the  horses.  Here,  too,  was  an 
arsenal,  ever  furnished  with  weapons  and  machines  of 
war.  All  this  space  was  separated  from  the  arena,  not  by 
a  wall,  but  by  pillars  with  latticed  gates.  Before  each 
race  the  eager  populace  could  discern,  through  this  grilled 
gateway,  the  pawing  steeds  and  their  impatient  drivers. 
By  the  outer  Gate  of  Decimus  persons  entered  the  ground 
story,  passing  on  the  left  the  tiny  church  or  oratory  where 
before  each  contest  the  champions  prayed. 


EXPLANATION   OF  PLAN   OF  THE   HIPPODROME 


A     .     . 

Obelisk,  centre  of  H. 

B     .     . 

Serpent  of  Delphi. 

C    .     . 

Bnilt  Column. 

D     . 

Phiale. 

E    .     . 

Goal  of  Blues. 

F    .     . 

Goal  of  Greens. 

i  i  i  in  E  and  F     . 

Small  Obelisks. 

G     . 

Spina. 

H    . 

Arena. 

I    .     . 

Euripos. 

J    . 

Place  of  execution  in  Arena. 

K    . 

Part  of  Arena  called  Stama. 

rm  in  K    . 

Twelve  gateways  of  the  Mangana. 

L     . 

Tetrakion. 

M    . 

Lodge  of  Judges. 

N    . 

Promenade. 

0    . 

Gate  of  Greens. 

P    . 

Gate  of  tbe  Dead. 

B     . 

Southwestern  Gate. 

S    . 

Gate  of  Blues. 

T    . 

Gate  of  Decimus. 

U    . 

Church  of  Saint  Stephen. 

V    . 

Spiral  Staircase,  Kochlias. 

w   . 

Palace  of  Kathisma. 

1 1 1 1 1 1  in  W    . 

Columns  separating  lodges  of  Courtiers. 

X    . 

Kathisma. 

-  in  X     . 

Throne  of  Emperor. 

Y    . 

.     The  Pi. 

Z    . 

Roof  over  that  part   of    Mangana    not   under 

Palace  of  Kathisma. 

a     . 

Towers  at  Gates. 

d     . 

.      Small  Church. 

m     . 

Passages  leading  to  Arena  and  stairways. 

SOLE  J 'Centimetre,  to  30 Metres  or382/2feet. 

PLAN    OF    THE    HIPPODROME 


328  CONSTANTINOPLE 

This  ground  story  was  about  twenty  feet  in  height.  On 
it  rested  the  Palace  of  the  Kathisma,  or  Tribunal.  In  its 
centre,  one  story  higher  still,  supported  by  twenty-four 
marble  pillars,  rose  the  Kathisma  proper,  or  platform,  from 
which  the  palace  derived  its  name.  Placed  in  the  very 
front  was  the  Emperor's  throne.  On  either  side  the 
throne  favored  courtiers  were  wont  to  stand,  and  behind 
were  picked  members  of  the  Imperial  Guard.  On  right 
and  left,  but  in  the  second  story  below,  were  the  lodges 
of  the  grand  dignitaries.  Directly  in  front  of  the  throne, 
but  on  a  level  with  the  lodges,  was  a  platform  raised  on 
pillars,  called  by  the  Greeks  the  Pi,  reserved  to  the  stand- 
ard-bearers and  to  the  Imperial  Guard.  In  the  rear,  lead- 
ing up  to  the  throne,  were  the  steps  which  every  high 
official  must  ascend  before  the  games  in  order  to  prostrate 
himself  at  the  Emperor's  feet. 

North  of  the  palace  was  the  Church  of  Saint  Stephen, 
through  which,  by  a  narrow  spiral  staircase,  and  never  by 
the  public  steps,  the  Emperor  ascended  to  the  Kathisma. 
That  secret  staircase,  which  Kodinos  calls  "  dark  and 
gloomy,"  saw  many  an  assassination  and  deed  of  blood. 
Often  the  emperors  must  have  shivered  as  in  lonely  maj- 
esty they  passed  up  those  steps  which  only  their  crimson- 
buskined  feet  could  tread. 

Though  the  Kathisma  seemed  rather  a  tier  of  lodges, 
as  in  a  theatre,  than  a  royal  residence,  it  contained  a 
dining-room,  bed-chambers,  dressing-rooms,  and  several 
other  apartments,  —  especially  one  airy  hall  wherein  the 
Emperor  was  robed  and  crowned.  In  one  of  these  bed- 
chambers Michael  III  was  wounded  unto  death  by  his 
successor  Basil,  and  cast,  wrapped  in  a  horse's  blanket, 
still  breathing,  into  the  Hippodrome  on  a  heap  of  dung. 

There  was  no  direct  communication  from  the  arena,  or 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  329 

from  the  rest  of  the  Hippodrome,  with  the  palace,  which 
was  entered  only  from  the  north.  Nevertheless,  in  a  riot, 
more  than  once,  the  rabble,  which  conld  approach  no 
nearer,  chased  the  Emperor  from  his  throne  by  a  shower 
of  stones.  This  experience  befell  Maurice,  Anastasios  IT, 
Theophilos,  Romanos  I,  and  Michael  V.  The  Emperor 
Phokas  I  threw  from  the  Kathisma  handfuls  of  gold  to 
purchase  popular  favor.  The  people  gathered  up  the 
coins,  meanwhile  insulting  the  sovereign  upon  his  seat  by 
every  epithet  which  contempt  and  hatred  could  suggest. 
Justinian  the  Great  once  rose  upon  the  throne  to  make 
an  impassioned  plea,  but  could  obtain  no  hearing  from  his 
irreverent  subjects,  who  screamed  from  forty  thousand 
throats,  "  Thou  liest !     Keep  quiet,  thou  donkey !  " 

During  the  early  period  the  Empress  had  her  station 
near  that  of  the  Emperor.  But  Western  customs  soon 
yielded  to  the  prejudices  of  the  East.  Far  down  the 
western  side  of  the  Hippodrome,  nearly  opposite  to  the 
Built  Column,  a  gorgeous  chamber  with  latticed  windows 
was  erected  for  the  Empress  and  her  retinue.  It  rested 
on  four  porphyry  pillars,  and  was  hence  called  the  Tetra- 
kion.  Close  beside  this  chamber,  during  the  more  solemn 
festivals,  was  placed  the  image  of  the  reigning  monarch, 
crowned  with  laurel. 

The  eastern,  western,  and  southern  portions  of  the 
Hippodrome  were  occupied  by  ascending  parallel  rows  of 
seats  and  standing-places,  appropriated  to  the  spectators 
according  to  their  degree.  The  marble  benches  rested  on 
vaulted  brick  arches.  The  lowest  range,  the  widest  and 
most  honorable,  the  Bouleutikon,  or  Podium,  was  raised 
about  thirteen  feet  above  the  level  of  the  arena,  and  was 
surrounded  by  a  polished  marble  rim  nearly  three  feet 
high.     Behind   rose  benches,  tier  on  tier.     Half-way  be- 


330  CONSTANTINOPLE 

tween  the  bottom  and  top,  a  broad  passage  separated  the 
rows  below  from  those  above.  Around  the  highest  part 
a  spacious  promenade  made  the  entire  circuit,  save  that  it 
was  shut  off  by  a  blank  wall  from  the  Palace  of  the 
Kathisma.  The  promenade  was  without  roof  or  covering, 
as  were  the  seats  in  the  Sphendone ;  but  over  the  sides 
gigantic  awnings  were  stretched  to  protect  the  spectators 
from  the  sun  or  rain. 

No  theatre,  no  palace,  no  public  building  has  to-day  a 
promenade  so  magnificent.  Standing  forty  feet  above  the 
ground,  protected  by  a  solid  marble  railing  reaching  to 
the  breast,  the  spectator  had  a  spacious  avenue  two  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  sixty-six  feet  long  in  which  to  walk. 
Within  was  all  the  pomp  and  pageantry  of  all  possible 
imperial  and  popular  contest  and  display.  Without,  piled 
high  around,  were  the  countless  imposing  structures  "  of 
that  city  which  for  more  than  half  a  thousand  years  was  the 
most  elegant,  the  most  civilized,  almost  the  only  civilized 
and  polished  city  in  the  world."  Beyond  were  the  Golden 
Horn,  crowded  with  shipping  ;  the  Bosphorus  in  its  winding 
beauty ;  the  Marmora,  studded  with  islands  and  fringing 
the  Asiatic  coast ;  the  long  line  of  the  Arganthonius  Moun- 
tains and  the  peaks  of  the  Bithynian  Olympus,  glittering 
with  eternal  snow,  —  all  combining  in  a  panorama  which 
even  now  no  other  city  of  mankind  can  rival. 

In  the  Hippodrome  eighty  thousand  spectators  might 
find  ample  room.  In  the  delirium  of  the  race,  ease,  rank, 
wealth,  office,  all  was  forgotten  ;  no  barriers  of  marble 
railings,  far  less  of  caste,  could  keep  the  crowds  apart. 
Treading  on  one  another's  feet,  raised  on  one  another's 
shoulders,  from  podium  to  promenade  close  wedged 
against  one  another's  side,  one  hundred  thousand  people 
in  one  human  mass,  fused  into  a  common  passion,  might 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  331 

glue  their  eyes  upon  the  chariot  and  the  goal.  The  ad- 
miring presence  of  the  fairer  sex  was  seldom  granted  to 
the  charioteer.  Behind  the  jealously  guarded  windows 
might  sit  the  Empress  in  stiff,  impassive  state,  and  the 
Ladies  of  Honor  as  seemingly  emotionless  in  her  train. 
But  it  was  deemed  indecorous  for  a  woman  to  frequent 
the  Hippodrome,  and,  save  the  imperial  company  in  the 
Tetrakion,  women  were  seldom  present. 

Combats  of  wild  beasts  or  gladiators  were  most  rare. 
Still,  the  arena  was  bounded  in  imitation  of  a  Boman 
trench  by  a  narrow  walk  called  the  Euripos,  which  was 
paved  in  tesselatecl  stone.  When  the  city  was  dedicated, 
this  Euripos  was  piled  high  with  fish  and  cakes  which 
were  thrown  among  the  people  in  sign  of  plenty.  The 
southern  part  of  the  arena  was  the  place  of  punishment, 
and  sometimes  of  execution.  Nor  was  it  the  traitor  and 
the  murderer  alone  who  there  met  his  doom.  Byzantios 
laments  that  "  there  took  place  the  bloody  deaths  of  not 
only  magicians,  heretics,  and  apostates,  but  even  of  patri- 
archs and  emperors."  Martyrs  to  a  truth  or  a  folly  there 
died  as  sublimely  as  at  Smithfield  or  Geneva  or  Madrid. 
Among  the  noblest  there  to  meet  his  doom  was  Basil,  the 
chief  of  the  Bogomiles. 

The  Spina  was  the  backbone  of  the  whole  hippodromic 
body.  This  was  a  smooth  and  level  wall,  four  feet  high 
and  six  hundred  and  seven  feet  long,  equidistant  between 
the  sides  of  the  arena.  In  a  perfect  race  its  circuit  was 
to  be  made  seven  times.  At  the  northern  end  was  the 
Goal  of  the  Blues  and  at  the  southern  the  Goal  of  the 
Greens,  each  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  Spina  by  a 
passage  equal  to  the  Spina's  width.  On  each  goal  were 
three  obelisks,  standing  in  a  line  perpendicular  to  the 
direction  of  the  Hippodrome.     On  the  northern  goal  the 


332  CONSTANTINOPLE 

mapparms  was  to  wait,  his  mappa  or  handkerchief  in  his 
hand,  his  eye  intently  fixed  on  the  Director  of  the  Games. 
ready  to  give  the  signal  for  the  furious  dash. 

At  each  extremity  of  the  Spina  proper  was  a  high  nar- 
row framework,  surmounted  by  seven  poles.  Seven  fishes 
capped  the  poles  of  the  northern  framework,  seven  eggs 
that  of  the  south.  On  completion  of  each  circuit  an  egg 
and  a  fish  were  removed  by  an  attendant,  so  that  every 
person  present  could  be  sure  how  many  turns  still  re- 
mained to  run.  The  fishes  were  the  emblem  of  Poseidon, 
god  of  the  sea  and  creator  of  the  horse;  the  eggs,  of  the 
twin  demi-gods,  Castor  and  Pollux,  inventors  of  the 
chariot  and  the  first  charioteers.  Among  the  pagans  these 
deities  were  the  special  patrons  of  the  Circus  and  the  Hip- 
podrome. Though  dethroned  by  a  newer  faith,  their  insig- 
nia remained.  Near  the  southern  end  of  the  Spina  was 
the  Phiale,  or  broad  basin  of  running  water,  devoted  to 
the  victims  of  accidents.  Over  it  rose  an  arched  canopy, 
resting  on  porphyry  pillars.  Above  this  canopy  a  column 
was  built,  covered  by  brazen  plates,  and  upon  the  column 
Constantine  VI  placed  the  statue  of  his  mother,  the 
Empress  Irene. 

One  ornament  of  the  Spina  always  called  forth  open- 
mouthed  wonder;  this  was  the  statue  of  a  maiden,  life- 
size  as  seen  from  the  ground,  poised  on  the  top  of  a 
Corinthian  pillar.  Her  weight  seemed  resting  on  one 
foot ;  the  other  was  advanced  as  if  stepping  forward,  and 
the  long  flowing  ends  of  a  girdle,  the  maiden's  only  rai- 
ment, floated  out  far  behind.  Without  apparent  human 
energy,  the  airy  sprite  would  face  in  one  direction  and 
another,  and  strangers  marvel,  ignorant  that  the  face  and 
form  so  fair  were  but  the  weathervane  of  the  Hippodrome. 

Three  monuments  still  remain  in  place.     One  may  well 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  333 

rejoice  that  three,  so  typical,  so  distinct,  so  crowded  full, 
each  of  its  individual  association,  have  survived  the  rav- 
ages of  man  and  time.  They  are  the  Egyptian  Obelisk, 
the  Built  Column  of  Constantine  VIII  Porphyrogenitus, 
and  the  Serpent  of  Delphi. 

In  the  Stania  —  the  space  between  the  northern  goal 
and  the  gateways  of  the  Carceres  —  wrestlers  and  acrobats 
exhibited,  and  insignificant  culprits  received  there  the 
punishment  of  their  misdemeanors ;  there,  in  sign  of  con- 
tempt, Constantine  V  Kopronymos  caused  the  Patriarch 
Anastasios  to  be  publicly  flogged. 

Four  gates,  flanked  with  towers,  gave  entrance  from  the 
city.  The  northwestern  was  called  the  Gate  of  the  Blues, 
the  northeastern  of  the  Greens ;  the  southeastern  bore  the 
sullen  title  Gate  of  the  Dead ;  the  southwestern  is  name- 
less. On  account  of  the  airy  height  of  the  Sphendone, 
there  no  triumphal  gate  was  possible  directly  opposite  the 
throne.  The  grand  processions  and  armies  returning  in 
triumph  entered  therefore  by  the  Gate  of  the  Blues. 

Of  the  vomitories  and  of  the  flights  of  steps  which  gave 
access  to  the  rows  of  seats,  not  the  slightest  description 
has  come  down. 

The  external  appearance  of  the  Hippodrome  was  impos- 
ing for  its  vastness  and  height  and  even  for  its  beauty. 
The  walls  were  of  brick,  laid  in  arches  and  faced  by  a  row 
of  Corinthian  pillars.  What  confronted  the  spectator's 
eye  was  a  wall  in  superposed  and  continuous  arches,  seen 
through  an  endless  colonnade.  Seventeen  columns  were 
still  erect  upon  their  bases  in  1529.  Gyllius,  who  saw 
them  then,  says  that  their  diameter  was  three  and  eleven 
twelfths  feet.  Each  was  twenty-eight  feet  hisvh,  and 
pedestal  and  capital  added  seven  feet  more.  They  stood 
eleven  feet  apart.     Hence,  deducting  for  the  gates,  towers, 


334  CONSTANTINOPLE 

and  palace,  at  least  two  hundred  and  sixty  columns  would 
be  required  in  the  circuit,  If  one,  with  the  curiosity  of  a 
traveller,  wished  to  journey  round  the  entire  perimeter,  he 
must  continue  on  through  a  distance  of  three  thousand 
four  hundred  and  fifteen  feet,  before  his  pilgrimage  ended 
at  the  spot  where  it  had  begun;  and  ever,  as  he  toiled 
along,  there  loomed  into  the  air  that  prodigious  mass, 
forty  feet  above  his  head.  No  wonder  that  there  re- 
mained, even  in  the  time  of  Sultan  Souleiman,  enough  to 
construct  that  most  superb  of  mosques,  the  Soulennanieh, 
from  the  fallen  columns,  the  splintered  marbles,  the  brick 
and  stone  of  the  Hippodrome. 

In  the  early  days  games  were  of  constant  occurrence. 
As  time  went  on  they  became  less  frequent,  and  at  last 
were  celebrated  only  on  the  two  days  which  the  Byzan- 
tines most  revered,  the  Ilth  of  May  and  the  25th  of 
December, — the  birthdays  of  the  city  and  of  Christ.  The 
ordinary  expense  of  a  celebration  was  not  far  from  twro 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  Such  a  sum  in  the  opulent 
days  of  Constantine  and  Theodosius  and  Justinian  was  a 
bagatelle.  But  as  the  years  rolled  on,  the  Arabs  from  the 
South,  the  Seldjouk  hordes  from  Asia  Minor,  and  the  Bul- 
garians in  Europe  pressed  upon  the  stricken  Empire.  As 
its  territorial  bounds  receded,  its  revenues  became  less 
and  less. 

The  night  before  a  celebration  every  place  along  the 
upper  benches  and  promenade,  and  in  the  Sphendone, 
would  be  seized  by  an  eager  crowTd.  The  lower  seats  and 
the  Podium  were  reserved  for  the  higher  classes.  All 
were  required  by  etiquette  to  be  in  place  before  the  sover- 
eign appeared.  When  all  was  ready,  the  Emperor,  robed 
and  crowned,  approached  the  balcony  before  his  throne, 
and  paused  a  moment  as  if  in  prayer.     Then,  bending  in 


ANCIENT  CONSTANTINOPLE  335 

benediction,  he  made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  first  to  the 
right,  then  to  the  left,  then  in  front.  Afterward  the  great 
officials  approached  to  pay  their  homage.  Except  in  times 
of  disorder  or  disaffection,  the  people  would  greet  their 
sovereign  with  a  hymn  appropriate  to  the  season  and  the 
day,  those  on  the  right  intoning  one  line,  those  on  the 
left  the  next.  Thus,  on  the  11th  of  May,  in  one  great 
wave  of  sound  would  roll  out  from  the  east, — 

"Behold  the  Spring,  the  goodly  Spring,  once  more  appears!" 

Then  from  the  western  side  would  swell  back  the  chorus, 

"  Prosperity  and  joy  and  health  it  brings." 

So  they  would  continue  ringing  out  line  after  line  of  that 
ancient  hymn,  inwrought  into  the  life  of  the  Hippodrome, 
and  of  which  we  have  only  the  beginning.  As  Paparri- 
gopoulos  well  remarks,  "  This  and  other  like  pleasing 
accompaniments  of  the  festival  imparted  a  gayety  and  a 
refinement  utterly  foreign  to  the  celebrations  in  the  Circus 
at  Rome."  Moreover,  in  the  sports  a  religious  element 
was  never  wanting.  The  early  fathers  indeed  denounced 
the  games ;  but  after  the  fifth  century,  patriarchs,  bish- 
ops, clergy,  had  their  places  appropriate  to  their  rank. 
"  The  choirs  which  chanted  in  the  cathedral  intoned  the 
hymn  of  triumph  at  the  race."  One  reason  of  the  mar- 
vellous hold  of  the  Orthodox  Greek  Church  upon  its  laity 
is  that  through  all  its  troubled  story  the  clergy  have  had 
their  full  share  in  the  pleasures  of  the  people,  as  well  as  in 
their  sufferings  and  their  prayers. 

The  political  condition  of  the  people  was  a  strange  min- 
gling of  servile  subjection  and  wild  lawlessness.  Some- 
times, with  the  insolence  of  equals,  they  would  insult  their 
sovereign ;  sometimes,  with  the  humility  of  devotees,  kiss 


3  3  6  CONS  7 A  NTINOPLE 

the  dust  at  his  feet.  Nowhere  else  was  the  populace  so 
free,  so  strong,  so  bold,  as  in  the  Hippodrome.  There 
the  thousands  felt  the  magnetic  influence  of  their  might. 
Often  the  great  host  in  the  Hippodrome  seemed  like  some 
national  assembly  presenting  its  petitions  and  enforcing 
its  rights.  The  boldest  tyrants  cowered  and  yielded  at 
the  majesty  of  the  popular  will  thundered  from  the 
benches  by  the  popular  voice.  Justinian  the  Great  is 
the  only  sovereign  who  maintained  his  throne  after  the 
Hippodrome  had  pronounced  his  deposition.  Insults,  sar- 
casms, complaints  against  his  government,  outrages  to  his 
dignity,  —  sure  deatli  if  committed  outside,  —  the  Emperor 
was  there  often  forced  to  tolerate,  and,  if  he  could,  ignore. 
The  Emperor  Maurice,  a  brave  but  swarthy  and  thick- 
lipped  soldier,  lost  his  popularity.  The  people  found  a 
negro  slave  who  bore  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  sover- 
eign.  In  the  midst  of  the  games  they  wrapped  around 
this  slave  a  black  cloth  shaped  like  the  Emperor's  mantle, 
put  a  crown  of  garlic  on  his  head,  seated  him  upon  an  ass, 
and  in  the  Emperor's  presence  paraded  this  parody  of  him- 
self back  and  forth  before  his  throne,  paying  to  the  negro 
their  derisive  homage,  and  shouting  to  the  real  sovereign, 
"  See,  see,  0  Maurice  !  behold  how  you  look  ! ' ' 

At  the  games  the  people,  who  might  obtain  audience  of 
their  monarch  nowhere  else,  firmly,  boldly,  often  with 
dignity,  presented  their  petitions.  Custom  had  decreed  that 
the  petition  should  be  in  the  form  of  a  fourfold  prayer. 
So  when  the  Empress  Ariadne,  widow  of  the  Emperor 
Zeno,  ascended  the  spiral  staircase  and  seated  herself  on 
her  husband's  throne,  the  people  cried,  "  Oh,  Ariadne, 
give  an  Orthodox  Emperor  to  rule  the  world  ;  give  a  pros- 
perous Easter  to  the  world  ;  give  order  and  safety  to  the 
city;  banish  that  robber  of  the  city  called  the  Prefect." 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  337 

Often  the  victims  of  oppression,  who  had  obtained  no 
redress,  by  a  stratagem  or  a  trick  would  there  gain  the 
Emperor's  ear.  A  merchant  vessel,  the  property  of  a 
widow,  with  all  its  cargo,  had  been  confiscated  on  some 
slight  pretext  by  the  Prefect  of  the  Palace.  The  Pre- 
fect was  able  to  baffle  all  the  widow's  efforts  after  jus- 
tice, and  to  prevent  knowledge  of  his  crime  from  reaching 
the  Emperor.  At  last  the  outraged  lady  gained  as  allies 
the  pantomimes  of  the  Hippodrome.  They  made  a  tiny 
ship,  which,  in  the  course  of  the  day,  they  put  in  the 
Stama,  directly  before  the  Emperor's  throne.  One  of  the 
clowns  called  to  another,  tk  Big  mouth,  swallow  that  ship." 
"My  mouth  is  not  big  enough  to  swallow  it,"  was  the  re- 
ply. "  What,  you  cannot  swallow  that  little  ship  !  Why, 
the  Prefect  of  the  Palace  has  just  swallowed  a  lug  galley 
with  all  its  cargo,  and  did  not  leave  a  bite  to  the  owner." 
The  Emperor  demands  an  explanation.  It  is  given.  At 
once,  in  the  presence  of  the  terrified  people,  he  orders  the 
Prefect,  still  wearing  his  gala  robes  of  office,  to  the  place 
of  execution  in  the  Sphenclone,  and  there  he  is  put  to 
death. 

The  most  turbulent  scenes  the  Hippodrome  beheld  were 
connected  with  the  rivalries  and  jealousies  of  the  rival 
factions,  the  Blues  and  the  Greens.  More  confusion  and 
contradiction  exists  concerning  these  antagonistic  parties 
than  in  reference  to  any  other  subject  connected  with 
Byzantine  history.  Divisions  by  the  shibboleth  of  a  name, 
a  color,  a  flower,  are  as  old  as  humanity.  These  divisions 
are  not  on  account  of  the  name,  the  flower,  the  color,  but 
on  account  of  that  for  which  it  stands.  The  people  <>!' 
Constantinople  wore  their  respective  color  as  a  badge; 
Their  struggles  were  not  from  the  hue  of  the  charioteer's 
tunic,  but  on  account  of  the  broad  distinctions  of  which 


VOL.    I. SI 


338  CONSTANTINOPLE 

that  color  was  the  insignia,  the  sign.  There  were  no 
electoral  campaigns,  no  casting  of  a  ballot,  small  voting 
viva  voce,  in  Constantinople.  But  antagonistic  feeling, 
prejudice,  principle,  in  politics  and  religion,  must  find 
expression  as  best  it  could.  In  civil  affairs  the  people 
were  divided  into  two  classes.  The  first  was  composed 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  proper ;  the  second,  of  the 
other  citizens.  The  city  proper  bore  something  of  the 
same  relation  to  the  remainder  of  the  capital  as  in  London 
does  "the  city"  to  the  other  quarters  of  the  metropolis. 
Among  the  citizens  proper  were  the  two  parties  of  the 
Whites  and  the  Reds.  Among  the  vastly  more  numerous 
other  citizens  were  the  two  parallel  parties  of  the  Blues 
and  the  Greens.  With  the  lapse  of  time  the  Whites  were 
absorbed  by  the  Blues,  and  the  Reds  by  the  Greens,  — 
each  coalescing  where  it  found  kindred  sympathies  and 
sentiments. 

The  Blues  were  the  conservatives  in  tendency,  zealous 
supporters  of  the  reigning  house,  and  orthodox  in  faith. 
The  Greens  were  the  radicals  of  the  day,  usually  luke- 
warm in  loyalty,  dissatisfied  with  the  existing  state  of 
things,  the  agitators,  freethinkers,  reformers,  latitudina- 
rians  in  religion.  An  iconoclast  was  seldom  a  Blue  ;  an 
adherent  of  holy  pictures  was  seldom  a  Green.  There 
were  moments  when  the  position  of  the  parties  seems 
reversed.  For  a  time  the  champion  of  opposition  be- 
comes the  champion  of  power.  Still,  through  the  course 
of  Byzantine  history,  the  Blues  and  the  Greens  held  to 
their  respective  credos  with  a  tenacity  and  consistency 
which  has  not  been  surpassed  by  the  great  political  par- 
tics  of  Britain  and  America. 

Both  parties  were  systematically  organized.  Each  pos- 
sessed its  chief,  or  demarch,  its  subordinate  presidents,  its 


ANCIENT  CONSTANTINOPLE  339 

hundreds  of  officers  and  servants  of  every  description,  its 
rolls  of  membership,  its  clubs,  throughout  all  the  villages 
and  cities  of  the  nation.  In  the  Hippodrome  they  found 
the  most  striking  arena  for  their  contention.  Gradually 
the  races  became  contests,  —  not  so  much  between  the 
steeds  and  charioteers  as  between  the  rival  factions  who 
owned  the  chariots  and  horses,  and  of  whose  organization 
the  eharioteer  was  a  member.  Whatever  was  used  or 
appeared  at  a  contest  —  a  rope,  a  trained  bear,  a  perform- 
ing mule,  a  ropewalker,  a  dancer  —  was  the  property  or 
partisan  of  one  faction  or  the  other.  Their  mutual  aver- 
sion was  manifested  everywhere  and  in  every  way.  When- 
ever one  applauded,  the  other  hissed. 

Acacius,  keeper  of  the  bears  for  the  Greens,  died  sud- 
denly. One  day  his  destitute  widow  sent  her  three  little 
girls,  seven,  five,  and  three  years  old,  into  the  arena,  before 
the  games  began,  to  solicit  the  compassion  of  the  specta- 
tors. The  Greens,  on  whose  side  they  commenced  their 
piteous  round,  received  them  with  contempt;  and  at  last, 
impatient  for  the  races,  ordered  them  back.  The  Blues 
took  the  children's  part,  and  showered  upon  them  kind- 
ness and  affection.  Years  passed  away,  but  the  experience 
of  that  hour  never  faded  from  the  memory  of  one  of  those 
little  girls.  When,  at  last,  no  longer  a  suppliant  for  bread, 
she  sat  crowned  Empress,  and  wedded  wife  of  the  illustrious 
Emperor  Justinian,  Theodora  visited  on  the  faction  of  the 
Greens,  with  whom  her  natural  sympathies  would  have 
allied  her,  full  measure  for  the  insult  and  outrage  heaped 
on  the  infant  daughters  of  her  dead  father,  the  poor 
bear-keeper  Acacius. 

Their  wildest  passions  were  most  excited  by  the  chariot 
race.  Here,  on  the  grandest  occasions,  one  hundred  char- 
iots contended,  in  each  contest  four;  and  hence  a  bewil- 


340  CONS  T- 1  -\  TIXOPLE 

dering  succession  of  twenty-five  distinct  contests  wrought 
each  spectator  to  a  white  heat  of  frenzy.  When  the  last 
race  was  finished,  no  power  on  earth  could  persuade  the 
vanquished  party,  foaming  with  rage,  that  the  prize  had 
been  fairly  won.  That  the  Greens  had  small  chance  for 
justice  there  is  no  doubt.  Inferior  in  numbers,  in  rank,  in 
wealth,  in  court  favor,  everything  was  against  them. 

By  a  wise  provision  the  Blues  and  Greens  sat  on  oppo- 
site sides  of  the  Hippodrome,  —  the  Blues  to  the  right  and 
the  Greens  to  the  left  of  the  Emperor.  Yet  sometimes 
down  they  would  plunge  from  their  seats,  over  the  barrier 
of  the  podium,  into  the  arena,  and  hundreds  be  slain  in 
the  sudden  fight. 

"Nika,"  conquer,  was  the  shout  of  the  contending  sides. 
In  the  reign  of  Justinian  occurred  the  most  horrible  and 
destructive  of  all  their  contests.  This  is  commonly  called 
the  Revolt  of  the  Nika.  Five  days  the  battle  raged  in  the 
Hippodrome  and  the  streets  between  the  two  colors.  Sud- 
denly, in  the  midst  of  their  strife,  both  parties  strangely 
forgot  their  resentment  in  a  common  resolution  to  de- 
throne the  Emperor.  They  seized  the  patrician  Hypatius, 
and,  deaf  to  the  prayers  and  tears  of  Ins  wife,  crowned 
him  against  his  will ;  then  forced  him,  reluctant  and  trem- 
bling, to  sit  in  state  on  the  throne  of  the  Kathisma.  The 
Hippodrome  was  packed  to  its  utmost  capacity  with  the 
multitude  acclaiming  the  new  sovereign.  The  soldiers  in 
the  palace  of  the  Kathisma  had  allowed  Hypatius  and  his 
partisans  to  enter,  but  prudently  refused  to  declare  for 
either  side  till  they  saw  who  would  win.  Belisarius  as- 
sailed the  Church  of  Saint  Stephen,  that  he  might  ascend 
to  the  throne  and  capture  Hypatius,  but  in  vain. 

At  last,  with  Mundus  and  Xarses,  generals  of  renown, 
he   formed   a   desperate  plan.      He   himself  will   proceed 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  341 

southwards  of  the  Hippodrome,  and  then  up  its  western  side 
to  the  Gate  of  the  Blues,  and,  with  his  little  troop,  attack 
the  thousands  within.  When  sufficient  time  has  been 
allowed  for  his  march,  Narses  will  attack  the  Gate  of  the 
Greens,  and  Mundus,  with  a  troop  of  Illvrians  (the  modern 
Albanians),  the  Gate  of  the  Dead.  Meanwhile  the  trium- 
phant, disorderly  populace  had  made  small  preparation  for 
defence.  Suddenly,  at  the  Gate  of  the  Blues,  appears 
Belisarius  at  the  head  of  his  column.  The  undisciplined 
mob  fights  at  every  disadvantage.  Remorselessly  the 
heroic  general  hurls  them  back  upon  the  advancing  bands 
of  Narses  and  Mundus.  But  one  way  of  escape  remains,  — 
the  gate  on  the  southwestern  side.  In  wild  panic  the 
fleeing,  shrieking  mob  tramples  hundreds  to  death.  When 
that  day's  sun  went  down,  thirty  thousand  human  beings 
lay  dead  in  the  Hippodrome.  Through  the  southeastern 
gate  —  now  at  last  deserving  the  name  Gate  of  the  Dead, 
which  it  had  borne  two  hundred  years  — their  bodies  were 
dragged,  and  crowded  into  deep  pits  below.  A  fearful 
conflagration  was  added  to  the  horrors  of  those  days. 
Sancta  Sophia,  the  Baths  of  Xeuxippos,  the  imperial 
palace,  and  the  fairest  portion  of  the  city,  were  laid  in 
ashes. 

The  Hippodrome  lay  silent,  forsaken,  dead,  apparently 
accursed,  for  two  years.  Then  it  was  purified  and  re-em- 
bellished for  the  most  splendid  show  Constantinople  had 
yet  beheld.  Again  Belisarius  —  foremost  general  of  all 
history,  save  the  ill-fated  hero  who  sleeps  near  the  peace- 
ful Gulf  of  Nicomedia  —  is  the  central  figure.  With 
twenty  thousand  men  he  has  won  three  pitched  battles 
against  desperate  odds;  slain  forty  thousand  Vandals; 
captured  Gelimer,  the  Vandal  King ;  reduced  the  whole 
Vandal  kingdom  of  Northern  Africa  to  a  province  of  the 


342  CONSTANTINOPLE 

East.  Emperor,  Church,  Senate,  Army,  People,  unite  with 
equal  fervor  in  extending  him  such  a  triumph  as  Rome 
bestowed  before  Christ  was  born.  Refusing  to  ride  in  the 
triumphal  car  drawn  by  four  white  horses,  he  advances 
on  foot,  declaring  that  his  army  have  been  equal  in  the 
hardship  and  must  now  be  equal  in  the  glory.  The 
Emperor  is  seated  on  his  throne  of  the  Kathisma.  The 
Hippodrome  teems  with  expectant  faces,  all  turning 
towards  the  Gate  of  the  Blues. 

At  last  the  martial  form  of  Belisarius  appears  at  the 
portal,  clad  in  complete  armor,  and  bearing  his  glorious 
sword.  Next  come  the  scarred  veterans,  bronzed  by  the 
southern  sun ;  afterwards  the  captive  monarch,  Gelimer, 
wearing  a  purple  robe,  and  every  inch  a  king ;  then  the 
captive  Vandal  nobles  in  a  long  procession ;  and  last,  the 
immense  booty,  guarded  by  Roman  soldiers.  There  is 
spoil  richer  and  more  various  than  Constantinople  has  ever 
seen.  There  are  the  standards  and  arms  of  the  Vandals ; 
the  solid  silver  plate  of  the  king;  his  throne  of  massive 
gold ;  his  crown ;  the  chariot  of  his  queen ;  baskets  of 
gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones ;  the  seven-bowled 
candlestick  and  the  sacred  vessels  of  the  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem, which  the  Vandals  had  plundered  from  Rome, 
whither  Titus  had  brought  them.  All  this  accumulation 
of  captive  men  and  treasure  is  paraded  up  and  down 
the  arena. 

Gelimer  is  the  haughtiest  figure  of  them  all.  Only  one 
phrase  he  repeats  as  he  looks  upon  that  surpassing  scene 
of  human  glory :  "  Vanitas  vanitatum,  vanitas  vanitatum, 
et  omnia  vanitas."  Arrived  before  the  seat  of  Justinian, 
his  purple  robe  is  torn  away,  and  he  is  ordered  to  throw 
himself  prostrate  in  the  dust  before  the  Emperor.  He 
indignantly  refuses.     A  deathlike  silence  of  surprise  and 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  313 

fear  reigns  through  the  Hippodrome.  The  great  heart  of 
Belisarius  honors  the  pride  of  his  prisoner.  He  approaches 
Gelimer,  salutes  him  with  profound  respect,  clasps  his 
hands,  and  exclaims,  "  I  entreat  you,  my  lord,  to  salute,  as 
I  do,  the  Emperor  Justinian."  Then  he  prostrates  himself. 
The  king  follows  his  example,  and,  in  the  hearing  of  all  the 
people,  says  with  prophetic  sympathy  to  Belisarius :  "  I 
bless  you  for  your  kindness  to  me  in  my  distress.  May 
you,  in  the  days  of  your  adversity,  meet  also  a  consoler 
and  friend." 

The  triumph  of  Nikephoros,  four  hundred  years  after, 
was  of  nearly  equal  splendor  with  that  of  Belisarius.  The 
procession  of  turbaned  emirs,  of  Arab  steeds,  of  wagons 
laden  with  plunder,  of  machines  of  war  captured  on  the 
field  of  battle,  of  Oriental  standards,  of  horsetails  crowned 
by  strange  devices,  entered  by  the  Gate  of  the  Blues, 
defiled  from  north  to  south  to  the  place  of  execution, 
turned  to  the  north  again  ;  and  constantly  the  endless 
throng  of  prisoners  and  their  conquerors  poured  through 
the  gateway,  till  there  seemed  no  longer  a  spot  whereon 
another  might  stand.  At  a  given  signal  every  prisoner 
cast  himself  prostrate  on  the  sand,  each  captured  standard 
was  thrown  down,  and  the  Emperor  Romanos  II  placed  his 
crimson  slipper,  embroidered  with  golden  eagles,  on  the 
shaven  head  of  the  chief  emir.  Meanwhile,  from  the 
benches  resounded,  blended  with  the  thunderous  music  of 
the  military  bands,  hosannahs  and  shouts  of  victory: 
"  Glory  to  God,  who  has  triumphed  over  the  children  of 
Hagar!  Glory  to  God,  who  has  confounded  the  enemies 
of  the  Virgin,  the  spotless  Mother  of  Christ!" 

Hours  would  not  suffice  to  trace,  however  briefly,  the 
more  thrilling  scenes  which  have  centred  in  the  Hippo- 
drome's walls.     A  mighty  kaleidoscope  it  seems,  wherein, 


344  CONSTANTINOPLE 

in  ever-shifting  variety  through  a  thousand  years,  were 
presented  singly  and  in  endless  combination  each  phase  of 
a  nation's  life.  Some  of  the  emperors  were  never  crowned, 
some  never  trod  the  hallowed  precincts  of  Sancta  Sophia ; 
but,  from  Constant ine  to  Isaac  Angeles,  there  were  only 
two  who  did  not  give  the  henediction  of  the  cross  from 
the  balcony  of  the  Kathisma,  and  sit  upon  its  throne. 
There  was  not  a  revolution  to  which  its  walls  did  not 
resound ;  not  a  national  disgrace  or  triumph,  heroic 
achievement  or  fiendish  crime,  which  did  not  echo  louder 
there  than  in  palace  or  church.  The  earth,  lying  now 
twelve  feet  deep  over  the  ancient  surface,  seems  to  hide 
beneath  all  the  mystery  and  history  of  the  past. 

What  vicissitudes  of  shame  and  glory,  of  loftiest  power 
and  profoundest  ignominy,  it  has  beheld !  Across  it,  with 
hands  tied  behind  him  and  feet  bound  together,  was 
dragged  by  the  heels  the  lifeless  body  of  that  wise  prince 
and  illustrious  ruler,  the  Emperor  Leo  V  the  Armenian,  to 
be  thrown  down  the  precipice  by  the  Gate  of  the  Dead. 

Justinian  II,  the  Nero  of  the  East,  during  eight  years  of 
an  atrocious  reign,  was  present  at  every  game  or  spectacle 
of  the  Hippodrome.  In  the  ninth  year  his  suffering  sub- 
jects seated  him  on  the  northern  goal,  and  there  cut  off  his 
nose  and  ears.  By  ill-timed  mercy  his  forfeited  life  was 
spared,  and  he  driven  into  exile  in  Russia.  Twelve  years 
later,  through  the  aid  of  a  powerful  ally,  he  returned  from 
banishment  and  captured  the  city  by  treason.  The 
Emperors  Tiberios  and  Leontios  were  bound  so  rigidly  that 
they  could  stir  neither  hand  nor  foot.  Justinian  II  seated 
himself  on  the  throne  of  the  Kathisma,  and,  during  the 
whole  continuance  of  the  games,  used  the  two  emperors  as 
his  footstools.  Meanwhile  his  partisans  intoned  the 
chant,  "  Thou  shalt  tread  upon  the  lion  and  adder ;  the 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  345 

young  lion  and  the  dragon  shalt  thou  trample  under  foot." 
The  games  concluded  with  the  execution  of  the  two 
emperors  in  the  Sphendone. 

There  the  Emperor  Andronikos  Komnenos,  Catiline  and 
Alcibiades  in  one,  was  promenaded  upon  a  camel  that  was 
lame,  hairless,  and  full  of  sores.  There  on  the  Spina  he 
was  hung  head  downward  on  a  fitting  gibbet,  the  statue  of 
the  Wolf  and  the  Hyama.  Meanwhile  women  he  had 
debauched  or  whose  kindred  he  had  slain,  tore  his  flesh 
with  their  nails.  The  unequalled  torments  that  succeeded 
make  us  forget  his  unequalled  crimes.  At  last  a  butcher 
in  compassion  drove  a  knife  into  his  body  to  end  the 
agony.  Then  the  corpse  of  this  most  handsome,  most 
fascinating,  most  brilliant,  and  withal  most  inhuman  and 
depraved  of  Byzantine  sovereigns,  was  cast,  an  unclean 
thing,  for  final  burial,  into  a  drain  of  the  Hippodrome. 

In  the  Hippodrome  the  groom  Basil  bestrode  the  un- 
broken Arabian  steed  that  none  other  dared  touch,  and 
while  the  frightened  creature  reared,  plunged,  and  dashed 
madly  round  the  arena,  maintained  his  seat.  At  last,  when 
the  vanquished  horse  stood  panting,  dripping,  quiet  as  a 
lamb  under  the  caresses  of  his  conqueror,  the  enraptured 
spectators  forgot  the  Emperor's  presence  in  their  uproarious 
shouts,  "Long  live  Basil!"  "Long  live  Basil!"  Not 
many  years  went  by  before  that  Slavonian  groom,  sole 
ruler  upon  the  throne  whence  the  Emperor  had  beheld  his 
prowess,  founded  a  glorious  dynasty,  and  became  known  to 
history  as  Basil  the  Great. 

In  842  the  Emperor  Theophilos  died,  leaving  no  heir 
save  a  child  Michael,  three  years  old.  Manuel,  the  com- 
mander of  the  arm}',  assembled  the  people  in  the  Hippo- 
drome, and  seated  the  child  upon  the  throne.  But  the 
Hippodrome  rang  with  the  shout,  "  Not  Michael !     Away 


346  CONSTANTINOPLE 

with  Michael !  Long  live  Manuel  Emperor  !  "  "  Hold/' 
he  cried,  "Michael  is  Emperor,  —  yours  and  mine."  The 
hundred  thousand  drowned  his  voice  in  the  unani- 
mous acclaim,  "  Manuel !  Manuel !  Emperor."  At  last, 
when  they  were  silent  from  exhaustion,  he  shouted,  with 
the  energy  of  a  deathless  resolve :  "  I  swear  I  will  not  be 
your  ruler !  Long  live  the  Emperor  Michael,  and  his 
mother  the  Empress  Theodora!"  The  cry  was  feebly 
repeated,  but  Manuel  kept  his  word.  Michael,  as  child 
and  man,  ruled  twenty-five  years,  alternately  at  the  games 
sitting  on  the  throne  where  Manuel  had  placed  him, 
and  contending  himself  as  a  charioteer,  wearing  the 
uniform  of  the  Blues.  But  the  deed  of  Manuel  remains, 
rare  in  any  age,  one  of  the  deathless  glories  of  Eastern 
history. 

When  the  last  chariot  race  took  place  in  the  Hippo- 
drome, it  is  impossible  to  say.  I  find  no  definite  refer- 
ence to  any  later  than  during  the  reign  of  Isaac  Angelos, 
who  was  dethroned  in  1195.  Certainly  none  ever  occurred 
later  than  1203.  Between  these  two  dates  for  the  last 
time  a  Byzantine  Emperor  sat  in  full  pomp  on  the  throne 
of  the  Kathisma  and  a  Byzantine  populace  crowded  its 
seats,  each  alike  ignorant  that  never  again  should  sover- 
eign  and  people  enjoy  its  sports. 

Many  times  the  Hippodrome  had  suffered  from  confla- 
grations in  the  city.  These  injuries  were  always  speedily 
repaired,  and  each  successive  restoration  seemed  to  leave 
it  more  impregnable  to  the  flames.  In  1203  a  fire,  wan- 
tonly kindled  by  the  Frank  and  Venetian  forces  of  the 
Fourth  Crusade,  raged  eight  entire  days  and  nights,  from 
the  Golden  Horn  to  the  Marmora,  over  a  territory  two  and 
a  half  miles  wide.  The  entire  western  side  of  the  Hippo- 
drome was  so  injured  as  to  require  re-erection  from   the 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  347 

foundations,  were  it  ever  to  be  used  again.  In  1204  the 
whole  barbarian  host,  wearing  the  cross  of  Christ  upon 
their  breasts,  —  the  cross  never  more  dishonored  than  then, 
—  in  the  Hippodrome  divided  the  spoil  and  plunder  torn 
from  the  ancient  capital  of  Christianity.  Then  it  was  they 
stripped  the  Hippodrome  of  almost  every  ornament,  cast- 
ing its  works  of  bronze  ruthlessly  into  the  melting-pot,  and 
breaking  its  marble  statues  and  carvings  with  the  battle- 
axe  and  hammer,  for  no  other  purpose  than  the  pastime  of 
barbaric  hate. 

In  the  Imperium  Orientale  of  the  Benedictine  monk 
Anselmo  Banduri  is  preserved  a  picture  of  the  Hippo- 
drome as  it  appeared  one  hundred  years  before  the  city 
was  captured  by  the  Ottomans ;  that  is,  in  1350.  Step 
by  step  through  Banduri,  through  Unuphrius  Panvinius, 
we  may  trace  back  this  work  of  a  nameless  artist.  Its 
details  are  not  gathered,  like  this  treatise,  in  a  later  age, 
from  a  hundred  different  sources,  and  put  in  place  by  the 
judgment  of  the  mind.  It  is  the  sketch  of  an  eye-witness, 
drawn  at  the  time  he  endeavors  to  represent.  Tried  by 
the  rules  of  art,  it  is  destitute  of  value.  It  is  heedless  of 
perspective  and  disdainful  of  proportion.  It  makes  the 
height  of  the  obelisk  equal  to  half  the  length  of  the  Hippo- 
drome. It  brings  the  Marmora  so  near  that  the  sea  almost 
washes  the  Hippodrome's  walls. 

Yet  that  inartistic  sketch  is  precious  to  us,  as  it  reveals 
in  what  utter  ruin  the  Hippodrome  already  lay  five  hun- 
dred years  ago,  and  as  it  preserves  the  rough,  imperfect 
likeness  of  the  little  which  still  remained.  A  few  monu- 
ments and  pedestals  and  the  northern  goal  peered  above 
the  ground  along  the  line  of  the  Spina,  but  the  Spina  was 
already  hidden  under  rubbish  and  debris.  Not  a  single 
marble  seat  was  left  in  place,  nor  any  part  of  the  western 


348  CONSTANTINOPLE 

wall,  and  hardly  any  of  the  eastern.  A  portion  of  the 
wall  of  the  Sphendone  was  intact,  as  of  course  all  of  its 
foundations.  The  Church  of  Saint  Stephen,  the  Palace 
of  the  Kathisma.  and  the  Mangana  or  carceres  were  still 
comparatively  well  preserved.  Dwelling-houses  had  al- 
ready been  built  within  the  enclosure,  especially  towards 
the  east.  The  sum  total  is  a  picture  of  desolation  and 
decay.  What  Peter  Gyllius  said  two  hundred  years  later 
is  already  true  :  "  It  is  a  sight  that  saddens." 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  that  desolation,  whose  silent, 
haunted  ruins  pleasure-seekers  had  long  abandoned,  that 
Constantine  XIII  Palaiologos  gathered  his  faithful  band 
during  the  night  of  that  28-29th  of  May,  1453.  Sancta 
Sophia  had  listened  to  the  last  prayer ;  the  corner  tower 
in  the  Heraklian  Wall  had  watched  the  last  vigil ;  the 
Gate  of  Saint  Romanos  was  about  to  immortalize  the  last 
conflict  of  the  last  Byzantine  Emperor.  The  crumbled 
Hippodrome,  in  the  night's  darkest  hour,  beheld  the  last 
review  of  Byzantine  forces,  and  heard  the  final  charge  of 
that  Emperor  to  his  troops.  To  Constantine  those  tumbled 
walls  about  him  must  have  seemed  in  keeping  with  the 
condition  of  the  Empire  and  the  despair  of  his  own  heart. 
No  fitter  place  did  the  world  afford  to  pronounce  at  once 
the  eulogy  and  the  elegy  of  all  that  had  been. 

If  at  that  dismal  hour  he  thought  of  all  the  vanished 
glories  of  his  capital,  he  must  have  realized,  what  we 
moderns  too  often  forget,  that  it  was  not  the  Turk,  the 
Ottoman,  the  Moslem,  who  despoiled  the  city  of  its  beauty 
and  broke  the  Empire's  strength.  On  the  Eastern  Empire, 
as  on  the  Hippodrome,  the  deathblow  had  fallen  at  the 
hands  of  the  Fourth  Crusade.  Madame  Roland  cried 
upon  the  platform  of  the  guillotine,  "0  Liberty!  what 
crimes  are  committed  in  thy  name."     Constantine,  stand- 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  349 

ing  that  night  at  the  threshold  of  his  opening  grave,  might 
well  have  cried,  "  0  Christianity !  what  crimes  in  thy 
name  have  been  committed  against  this  Christian  city  and 
this  Christian  nation  by  those  who  claimed,  like  us,  to  be 
the  followers  of  Christ !  " 

Since  the  Conquest  the  Hippodrome,  become  the  Atmei- 
dan,  has  been  constantly  connected  with  Ottoman  history. 
Lying  close  beside  the  Seraglio,  where  till  fifty  years  ago 
the  sultans  dwelt,  it  was  the  favorite  field  of  official  and 
popular  display.  When  the  Mosque  of  Sultan  Achmet 
was  built  partly  within  the  Atme'idan,  its  territorial  extent 
was  diminished,  but  its  dignity  was  increased.  It  became 
the  centre  of  religious  and  ecclesiastical,  as  it  was  also  of 
civil  and  secular  observances.  There  each  Sultan  first 
reviewed  his  troops  after  accession,  and  there  bestowed  his 
largesses,  the  invariable  and  welcome  accompaniment  of 
each  new  reign.  There  the  circumcisions  and  marriages 
of  the  reigning  family  were  celebrated  with  Oriental 
extravagance  and  pomp.  Sometimes  gladiatorial  fights, 
wherein  Slavonian  and  Hungarian  prisoners  fought  one 
another  to  the  death,  furnished  amusement  to  the  faithful. 
There  the  mounted  pages  of  the  palace  contended  in  the 
wild  game  of  the  djerid,  a  sport  as  maddening  and  as 
dangerous  as  the  contests  of  the  arena. 

Toward  the  west,  partly  within  and  partly  without  the 
ancient  limits  of  the  Hippodrome,  the  all-powerful  Ibra- 
him Pacha,  Grand  Vizir,  and  brother-in-law  of  Sultan 
Suleiman,  erected  the  most  magnificent  palace  an  Otto- 
man subject  has  ever  possessed.  The  palace  has  disap- 
peared like  the  Hippodrome,  of  whose  materials  it  was 
partly  built.  Ibrahim  Pacha  placed  upon  two  pedestals, 
still  remaining  in  the  Spina,  a  Diana  and  a  colossal  Her- 
cules of  bronze  brought  from  Buda.     The  Hercules  for- 


350  CONSTANTINOPLE 

merly  existing  there  in  the  time  of  Constantine  had  been 
melted  by  the  Crusaders.  In  the  Atmeidan,  Achmet 
Pacha,  Grand  Vizir,  husband  of  the  daughter  of  Sultan 
Ibrahim,  was  thrown  before  the  horse-hoofs  of  his  suc- 
cessor, Mohammed  Pacha,  and  his  body,  then  cut  into 
fragments,  sold  at  ten  aspres  the  piece  as  an  infallible 
cure  for  rheumatism. 

In  the  Atmeidan,  in  the  vain  effort  to  regain  his  health, 
Sultan  Mourad  III  slew,  with  his  own  hand,  fifty-two 
sheep,  some  black,  some  white,  some  spotted,  the  requi- 
site number  of  each  color  having  been  indicated  to  him 
in  a  dream.  There,  too,  during  a  rebellion,  Sultan  Mou- 
rad IV,  the  Conqueror,  galloped  alone  into  the  midst  of 
the  mutineers,  and  quelled  the  sedition  by  the  authority 
of  his  presence. 

The  mausoleum  of  two  Ottoman  sovereigns  is  situated 
in  the  northeast  quarter  of  the  Atme'idan.  In  it  are 
buried  the  pious  Sultan  Achmet  I  and  the  boy  Sultan 
0  sman  II,  the  prince  of  unusual  early  promise  and  of  a 
most  tragic  end. 

From  the  Atmeidan  marched  the  undisciplined  hosts  of 
the  citizens,  the  Sandjak  Sherif  borne  at  their  head,  for 
the  extermination  of  the  Janissaries.  A  curious  mistake 
of  historians,  the  change  of  a  single  letter  in  a  name,  has 
often  confounded  the  Etmeidan  with  the  Atmeidan,  and 
located  in  the  latter  events  with  which  it  had  little  or  no 
connection.  The  Etmeidan,  a  quarter  of  the  city  nearly 
two  miles  distant,  was  the  centre  and  stronghold  of  the 
Janissaries.  In  the  Atmeidan,  indeed,  they  more  than 
once  upset  their  kettles  in  signal  of  revolution,  and  rushed 
over  it  in  their  furious  raids ;  still,  it  was  a  region  they 
neither  loved  nor  frequented. 

To-day  to  many  a  tourist  the  chief  attraction  of  the 


ANCIENT  CONSTANTINOPLE 


351 


Atme'idan  is  the  Museum  of  the  Janissaries,  stocked  with 
their  ferocious  likenesses,  each  clad  in  the  robes  and  bear- 
ing the  arms  of  his  troop.  But  it  was  the  Etmeidan, 
rather  than  the  Atme'idan,  wherein  they  made  their  last 
rebellion,  and  were  deservedly  destroyed  by  Sultan  Mah- 
moud  II  the  Reformer. 

I  have  said  but  little  of  the  Hippodrome  as  it  is  to-day. 
My  topic  has  been  rather  its  living  past  than  its  dead 
present.     Beside  the  three  monuments  of  the  Spina,  and 


The  Game  of  Djekid 


the  foundations  of  the  Sphendone,  hardly  any  remains 
exist.  Within  the  inclosure  of  the  Mosque  of  Sultan 
Achmet,  supporting  the  Turkish  wall  built  upon  it,  is 
still  to  be  seen  a  brick  arch,  sole  vestige  of  the  continuous 
row  which,  faced  in  marble,  upheld  the  podium  and 
bounded  the  arena.  Still  farther  within  the  enclosure, 
one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  feet  distant  from  the  cen- 
tral line  of  the  Hippodrome,  is  a  pillar  still  erect,  that  I 
judge  was  built  into  the  outer  wall. 

Towards  the  southwest  of  the  Atme'idan  is  situated  a 
roofless  cave  or  chamber,  its  paved  floor  sunk  fourteen 


; )  5  2  CONSTANTINOPLE 

feet  below  the  surface  of  the  ground.  One  descends  by  a 
gently  inclining  plane.  On  the  right  are  marble  slabs, 
marked  with  the  cross,  through  which  water  trickles. 
Hurrying  onward  towards  the  walls  of  the  Sphendone,  as 
of  old  it  did  to  the  Phiale  of  the  Spina,  it  seems  con- 
stantly murmuring,  in  its  crystal  voice,  Tennyson's  Song 
of  the  Brook, — 

"For  men  may  come,  and  men  may  go, 
But  I  go  on  forever." 

The  Serpent  is  broken,  the  Built  Column  is  despoiled, 
even  the  changeless  Obelisk  is  defaced ;  but  the  little 
stream  flows  no  less  musical  and  bright.  Keats  left  as 
inscription  for  his  tombstone,  "  Here  lies  one  whose  name 
is  writ  on  water."  The  archeologist,  brushing  away  the 
dust  of  ruined  empires  and  beholding  the  still  flowing 
stream,  may  well  ask  was  there  anything  more  enduring, 
as  enduring,  as  the  water  on  which  to  write  it  ? 

In  the  northern  part  of  the  Atme'idan  has  been  built  a 
small  kiosk,  and  around  it  has  been  planted  a  tmy  garden. 
There  is  no  more  fascinating  spot  in  Constantinople  for 
rest  and  re  very.  As  one  sits  and  muses  hi  the  grateful 
shade  of  the  trees,  whose  roots  wind  down  to  the  old 
surface  of  the  arena,  inevitably,  unconsciously  to  himself 
perhaps,  he  reconstitutes  the  past.  He  knows  the  Palace 
of  the  Kathisma  rose  on  its  snowy  pillars  where  runs  the 
dusty  street;  he  lifts  his  eyes  toward  the  point  in  the 
empty  air  where  sat  successive  tiaraed  emperors  upon 
the  vanished  throne.  He  knows  the  first  mad  dash  of 
the  chariots  in  frenzied  rivalry  began  where  the  garden 
stands,  and  in  the  air  rustling  among  the  leaves  he 
seems  to  hear  them  whizzing  by  him  in  their  rushing 
whir.     He  knows  that  from  the  west,  through  the  Gate 


ANCIENT   CONSTANTINOPLE  303 

of  the  Blues,  poured  victorious  armies  and  throngs  of 
prisoners ;  and  that,  while  the  humbler  host  pressed  far- 
ther to  the  southward,  the  triumphant  generals  and  cap- 
tive monarchs  halted  to  do  homage  to  the  Emperor  on 
ground  that  would  be  comprehended  within  the  enclosure 
where  he  is.  He  knows  that  to  that  self-same  spot  came 
the  successful  champions  of  the  arena  to  receive  from 
imperial  hands  their  hard-won  laurel  crowns.  He  casts 
his  eye  southward  towards  the  three  surviving  monuments 
of  the  Spina,  and  his  heart  echoes  to  the  words  of  the 
Vandal  King  to  Belisarius,  uttered  at  farthest  but  a  few 
yards  away,  perhaps  at  the  very  spot  where  his  chair  is 
standing,  —  the  saddest,  wisest  words  that  Solomon  learned 
or  taught. 


vol.  i.  —  28 


VIII 


STILL   EXISTING   ANTIQUITIES 


HE  contrast  between  tlie  edifices  and 
monuments  of  the  ancient  city,  as  de- 
scribed by  history  and  imagination,  and 
their  infrequent  and  scanty  remains,  is, 
at  first  glance,  strange  and  shocking. 
It  is  not  that  the  ruins  are  so  ruinous, 
but  that  they  are  so  few.  The  tortuous 
windings  of  the  streets  indeed  reveal  the  dilapidated  and 
abandoned  at  every  turn.  The  air  of  decrepitude  and 
decline  hangs  heavy  in  certain  quarters.  Decadence  and 
death  speak  out  not  only  from  mouldy  graveyards  within 
the  city  limits,  but  from  crumbling  piles  of  brick  and 
stone  that  seem  ready  to  fall.  Still  this  is  the  decay  of 
the  recent  rather  than  of  the  old.  The  debris  of  the  last 
superposed  city  and  civilization  is  on  the  surface,  and 
1  juries  and  conceals  that  older  Byzantine  city  on  which  it 
was  planted  four  and  a  half  centuries  ago. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  time,  fire,  earthquake,  and 
war  have  laid  everywhere  their  devastating  hands.  There 
are  certain  reasons  why  the  real  antiquities  of  Constanti- 
nople must  be  few  in  comparison  with  many  ancient  capi- 
tals, and  especially  with  the  elder  metropolis  or  imperial 
mother  Rome.  Here  the  habitable  territory  was  con- 
tracted, hemmed  in  between  the  Golden  Horn  and  Mar- 
mora ;  of  necessity  each  succeeding  generation  built  upon 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  3->5 

and  inhabited  the  very  spot  where  innumerable  preceding 
generations  had  successively  dwelt.  The  abodes  of  the 
recently  dead  were  incessantly  torn  down  or  covered  over 
to  appease  the  exigencies  of  the  insatiable  living.  Many 
a  quarried  stone  or  chiselled  marble,  now  the  threshold  of 
some  cafe  or  the  prop  of  some  tottering  garden  wall,  has 
had  its  place  of  honor  or  oblivion  in  a  score  of  different 
edifices,  and  could  tell  a  tale  which,  though  limited  to  a 
dozen  miles  in  circuit,  is  more  fantastic  and  begins  millen- 
niums earlier  than  the  transformations  of  the  Wandering 
Jew.  Rome,  though  often  sacked  and  pillaged,  never 
suffered  a  domination  so  injurious  as  the  half-century  du- 
ration of  the  Latin  Empire  at  Constantinople.  The  icono- 
clastic controversy  which  raged  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  had  as  its  watchword  and  chief  achievement,  to 
destroy.  The  later  rule  of  the  Ottomans,  contemptuous  of 
antiquity  rather  than  wantonly  destructive,  has  not  tended 
to  the  preservation  of  whatever  elated  from  another  reli- 
gion and  race. 

Yet,  when  all  is  said,  the  fact  remains  that  Constanti- 
nople does  possess  numerous  monuments  of  the  past,  some 
of  them  unrivalled,  and  others  among  the  most  precious 
in  the  world.  Her  scores  of  Christian  churches,  now 
minareted  and  muezzined  mosques,  set  forth  in  detail  the 
story  of  Byzantine  architecture  from  the  first  Constantine 
to  the  last.  Her  colonnaded  cisterns,  coeval  almost  with 
her  foundation,  are  the  largest  and  best  preserved  of  any 
in  the  ancient  Roman  Empire.  Her  city  walls  are  the 
vastest,  most  imposing,  and  most  important  military  mon- 
ument of  the  early  Christian  ages.  Sancta  Sophia,  taken 
all  in  all,  is  without  a  rival  among  Christian  churches. 
The  Serpent  of  Delphi,  headless,  shattered,  and  disfigured 
in  the  Atmeidan,  is  richer  in  association  and  more  instinct 


356  CONSTANTINOPLE 

with  meaning  than  any  other  relic  which  the  classic  age 
of  Greece  has  handed  down. 

Yet  in  many  cases  description  of  fragments,  dotting 
the  soil,  amounts  to  hardly  more  than  indication  of  the 
spot  where  once  rose  some  historic  or  splendid  structure, 
but  of  which  there  are  left  to-day  only  an  uncertain 
memory  and  almost  no  remains. 


THE   AQUEDUCT   OF  VALENS 

This  stately  pile,  whitened  by  the  centuries,  called  by 
the  Ottomans  Bosdoghan  Kemer  or  Arches  of  the  Gray 
Falcon,  and  about  two  thousand  feet  in  length,  spans  the 
valley  between  the  third  and  fourth  hills.  Nothing  can 
be  conceived  more  picturescpie  than  its  windowed  length 
festooned  with  ivy  and  thrown  into  distinct  relief  against 
the  azure  sky. 

In  its  erection  and  various  restorations,  the  greatest 
among  the  Pagan,  Christian,  and  Moslem  sovereigns  seem 
laboring  as  contemporaries,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  though 
hundreds  of  years  apart.  Begun  by  Adrian,  who  sought  to 
furnish  Byzantium  with  water  from  the  classic  Cyclaris 
and  Barbyses,  it  was  entirely  reconstructed  by  Valens  with 
the  hewn  stone  stripped  from  the  demolished  walls  of 
rebellious  Chalkedon.  Theodosius  the  Great,  Justin  II, 
C< mstantine  V  Kopronymos,  Basil  the  Great,  Constantine 
VIII  Porphyrogenitus,  Romanos  III  Argyros,  Andronikos 
I  Komnenos,  left  on  it  their  successive  impress  as  its 
restorers. 

As  seen  to-day  it  reveals  in  its  unshaken  strength  and 
quaint  proportions  the  architectural  magnificence  and 
childish   caprice  of  Souleiman  I  the  Sublime.     Absorbed 


Q 

Q 
P 

< 


358 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


in  its  restoration,  he  used  to  pray,  the  Ottoman  historians 

state,  that  his  life  might  be  prolonged  until  it  was  com- 
plete. But  no  sooner 
was  it  finished  than 
lie  ordered  its  im- 
mediate destruction, 
sinceitobstructedthe 
view  of  Shahzadeh 
Djami,  his  favorite 
mosque.  Its  present 
abrupt  appearance 
at  either  end  results 
from  the  demolition 
thus  begun  but  not 
fully  accomplished. 
The  hewn  stone 
arches,  twenty  feet 
in  thickness,  are  the 
work  of  the  Byzan- 
tine emperors,  while 
those  in  brick  above 
date  from  Soule'i- 
man.  The  water  it 
conveyed,  considered 
the  purest  in  the  city, 
was  lung  reserved 
for  the  Seraglio,  and 
now  largely  sujmlies 
the  eastern  quarters 
of  Stamboul. 
The   Ottoman  houses,  close   wedged  around   the   sides 

of  the  aqueduct,  prevent  a  satisfactory  view  when  near. 

Seen  from  the   Golden  Horn  or  the  heights  of  Pera,  it 


Aqueduct  of  Vai.exs 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  359 

hangs,  a  mammoth  verdant  garland  on  a  framework  of 
stone.  Above  the  city,  reposing  at  its  base,  it  rises  ma- 
jestic and  sublime,  the  most  striking  and  aesthetic  ruin 
which  the  past  has  bequeathed  the  capital.  Its  narrow 
upper  rim  affords  a  dizzy  promenade,  with  unstable  footing, 
seventy  feet  above  the  ground,  for  any  sight-seer  more 
adventurous  than  prudent.  But  if  one  be  clear-headed  and 
sure-footed,  as  he  revels  in  the  entrancing  panorama  it 
unfolds,  he  is  rewarded  for  his  daring. 


THE   BATHS   OF  CONSTANTLY 

The  one  great  bath,  surviving  the  destruction  of  all  the 
others,  was  that  of  Constantine,  near  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Apostles.  Its  last  visible  vestiges  were  hidden  from 
human  sight  six  years  ago.  After  the  conquest  Mo- 
hammed II  renovated  it  with  his  accustomed  magnificence. 
It  became  familiar  to  the  Ottomans  as  Tchochour  Hamam, 
the  Sunken  Bath,  because,  though  built  upon  an  eminence, 
it  was  situated  in  a  depression  of  the  broad  land  wave 
which  constitutes  the  fourth  hill. 

Its  history  affords  a  pointed  illustration  of  the  quick- 
ness with  which  the  useless  or  disused  vanishes  from  the 
memory  of  men.  Shaken  down  by  the  frightful  earth- 
quake that  almost  destroyed  the  Mosque  of  Sultan  Mo- 
hammed at  its  side,  Tchochour  Hamam  could  no  longer 
serve  its  original  purpose,  and  the  passers-by,  though 
dwelling  in  its  immediate  vicinity,  soon  lost  all  recollec- 
tion of  its  name,  and  even  of  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
designed.  Easily  accessible  in  the  midst  of  the  crowded 
city,  its  sumptuous  remains  became  a  common  quarry. 

The  whole  locality  is  the  property  of  a  courtly  Ottoman 


360  CONSTANTINOPLE 

who  loquaciously  describes  his  boyish  wanderings  through 
its  dismantled  chambers,  and  his  wonder  at  the  strange 
devices  upon  the  ceilings  and  walls.  The  compartments 
still  exist,  but  are  covered  over  with  masonry.  A  spirit  of 
commercial  enterprise  has  breathed  upon  the  owner,  and  a 
street,  lined  on  either  side  with  attractive  houses,  has  been 
laid  out  directly  above  the  ancient  bath. 

In  August,  1889, 1  visited  the  only  room  that  could  still 
be  entered.  With,  a  rope  for  ladder,  I  descended  to  a 
vaulted  room,  twelve  paces  long,  from  which  every  trace 
of  ornament  had  disappeared.  This  chamber,  so  trans- 
formed, without  one  reminder  of  former  luxury  and  grace, 
was  itself  sealed  up  the  following  week.  What  had  been 
visible  fifteen  hundred  and  fifty  years  I  was  the  last 
to  see. 

THE   CISTERNS 

Upon  her  enormous  and  numerous  cisterns  the  very 
existence  of  Constantinople  depended.  Natural  water- 
springs  within  the  city  limits  were  almost  wholly  wanting. 
When  the  annual  rainfall  failed,  and  the  country  springs 
dried  up,  the  aqueducts  could  furnish  only  a  variable  and 
often  insufficient  supply.  In  time  of  war  even  that  might 
be  intercepted  by  any  foe  sufficiently  sagacious  to  discover 
and  cut  the  subterranean  pipes.  Neither  palace,  nor 
church,  nor  Hippodrome  was  an  absolute  necessity  of 
the  people's  physical  life ;  but  in  siege  or  drought,  should 
the  precious  streams  be  exhausted  which  those  cisterns 
afforded,  nothing  would  be  left  the  parched  inhabitants 
save  to  die. 

So,  with  strategic  skill,  in  a  warlike  age,  a  cistern,  like  a 
fortress,  was  planted  on  every  hill,  all  interconnected  and 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  361 

arranged  for  mutual  support.  They  were  watched  with 
the  assiduous  care  which  their  importance  demanded.  By 
a  wise  economy  they  were  kept  always  full,  though  in  con- 
stant use.  Some,  the  more  prodigious  in  extent,  "  resem- 
bled lakes  or  seas,"  and  were  open  to  the  sky.  Others, 
hardly  less  stupendous,  were  covered  with  vaulted  roofs, 
which  hundreds  of  great  columns  upheld,  and  above  which 
hundreds  of  human  beings  dwelt.  Many  of  these  colossal 
subterranean  structures  have  disappeared ;  a  few  still  con- 
vey the  life-giving  liquid  as  of  old ;  some  are  utilized  by 
silk-spinners,  who,  in  emaciated  procession,  wind  their 
threads  among  the  mighty  columns  which  rise  amid  the 
gloom  like  gigantic  moveless  ghosts ;  some  have  fallen  in, 
and  their  walls  of  cement  and  their  prostrate  pillars  look 
up  piteously  to  the  clay. 

Antiquarians  have  sought  them  out  with  inquisitive 
attention  and  most  various  results.  Among  the  still  exist- 
ing, Du  Cange  enumerates  twenty;  Lechevalier,  eight; 
the  Patriarch  Constantios  I,  eleven ;  Count  Andreossy, 
thirteen ;  Gedeon,  nineteen ;  and  Tchihatcheff,  twelve. 

Though  utility  was  the  end  in  view,  grandeur  was 
inevitable  from  their  majestic  size  and  perfect  propor- 
tions ;  grace  and  beauty  were  added  by  the  aesthetic  sense 
of  their  builders.  So  the  cisterns,  so  utilitarian  in  pur- 
pose, impress  the  modern  beholder  as  monuments  equally 
artistic  and  sublime. 

The  half  subterranean  Cistern  of  Arcadius  is  relatively 
small,  —  only  ninety-four  feet  long,  fifty-eight  feet  wide, 
and  forty-one  feet  high.  Its  twenty-eight  marble  columns, 
arranged  in  four  symmetric  rows,  are  each  surmounted  by 
a  Corinthian  capital,  on  which  a  Byzantine  capital  rests. 
The  cross,  wrought  in  that  age  of  faith  on  the  four  sides 
of  every  capital,  is  perfectly  distinct,  as  likewise  is  the 


362  CONSTANTINOPLE 

cross  in  the  very  centre  of  each  of  the  forty  Roman  vaults 
above.  Faint  light  straggles  in  through  a  few  apertures 
towards  the  top,  and  by  four  tiny  windows  on  the  north. 
On  the  moist  and  slimy  floor  the  pale  and  sickly  silk- 
spinners  flit  like  spectres  to  and  fro,  despite  the  gloom  and 
damp.  This  cistern  has  escaped  the  curious  eyes  of  most 
investigators,  and  of  almost  every  traveller,  and  its  exist- 
ence is  hardly  known.  Its  graceful,  almost  ethereal  pro- 
portions, and  the  rare  finish  of  its  capitals,  some  of  them 
adorned  with  the  drooping  ornament  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
render  it  as  dainty  and  attractive  as  a  marble  palace. 

The  Cistern  of  Asparos,  in  the  quarter  of  Salman  Tom- 
rouk  is  of  almost  the  same  dimensions,  —  eighty-two  and  a 
half  feet  long  and  fifty-one  feet  broad,  with  twenty-eight 
columns  in  four  equal  rows.  But  it  is  a  monument  of 
architectural  variety,  no  two  columns  being  of  the  same 
length,  circumference,  or  material,  and  their  bases  and 
capitals  being  equally  dissimilar.  Erected  in  459,  it 
rescues  from  oblivion  the  name  of  a  heroic  figure,  the 
Consul  Asparos,  the  Warwick,  or  kingmaker,  of  the  fifth 
century,  who  might  himself  have  become  Emperor  had  he 
been  willing  to  abjure  his  Arianism  for  a  crown. 

Close  by  is  another  cistern,  in  so  ruinous  condition  that 
the  approaches  are  walled  up  by  governmental  solicitude. 
The  neighbors  tremblingly  call  it  Djin  Ali  Kiosk,  the 
Summer  House  of  the  Djin  Ali,  and  believe  it  haunted  by 
dead  Greeks  and  devils. 

The  Cistern  of  Bonos,  who  in  the  seventh  century  was 
chief  commander  of  the  city  during  the  siege  by  the 
Avars,  is  of  entirely  other  structure  and  design.  Its  area 
is  enormous,  —  six  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  long,  and 
two  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  broad.  The  sides  are 
lined  by  perpendicular  walls  of  stone.     The  earth,  accu- 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  363 

mulated  within,  has  partially  filled  it  up,  and  it  varies 
now  from  ten  to  thirty-five  feet  in  depth..  The  included 
territory  is  covered  with  orchards  and  vegetable  gardens, 
while  a  whole  sunken  village  dwells  inside,  whose  housetops, 
peering  through  the  trees,  are  lower  than  the  level  of  the 
outer  street.  Situated  near  Edirneh  Kapou,  it  must  have 
furnished  the  main  supply  of   the  sixth  hill. 

South  of  the  Mosque  of  Sultan  Selim  is  a  kindred  cis- 
tern, built  by  Manuel  Komnenos  in  the  twelfth  century, 
and  called  the  Cistern  of  Petrion  because  of  the  famous 
monastic  quarter  on  the  fifth  hill,  the  necessities  of  which 
it  supplied.  Almost  square,  it  measures  four  hundred  and 
thirty-five  feet  by  three  hundred  and  eighty-two.  Its 
walls,  sixteen  feet  thick  and  thirty-two  feet  high,  are  faced 
in  alternate  layers  of  brick  and  stone.  Several  yards 
of  soil  in  most  places  hide  the  stone  floor,  which  is  six 
feet  thick.  Despite  their  tediousness,  these  figures  are  of 
value,  as  they  indicate  the  amount  of  labor  requisite,  and 
the  astonishing  quantity  of  material  employed  in  such 
construction. 

The  Cistern  of  Mokios,  named  from  the  adjacent  ancient 
Church  of  Mokios,  north  of  Eximarmora,  is  of  like  con- 
struction and  of  still  vaster  dimensions,  —  over  five  hundred 
feet  long  by  four  hundred  broad.  It  was  the  chief  depend- 
ence of  the  seventh  hill.  The  facing  of  the  walls  con- 
sists of  the  finest  hewn  stone.  Built  by  Anastasios  I,  who 
was  crowned  in  491,  the  Emperor  John  Palaiologos  de- 
spoiled it  in  the  fourteenth  century.  Like  the  cisterns  of 
Bonos  and  Petrion,  its  enclosure  is  occupied  by  a  rural 
village,  and  like  them  it  bears  among  the  Ottomans  the 
same  name  of  Tchochour  Bostan.  or  the  Sunken  Garden. 
Michael  Chrysoloras's  descriptive  epithet  of  "  vast  open 
seas"  might  seem  too  fanciful  for  the  sheets  of  pure,  trans- 


364  CONSTANTINOPLE 

parent  water  they  once  contained ;  yet  it  may  be,  as  tradi- 
tion states,  that  tiny  fleets  in  mock  sea-battle  agitated 
sometimes  their  fair  expanse. 

Close  to  Djubali  is  a  nameless  cistern  whose  fourteen 
columns,  rising  from  a  mass  of  rubbish  and  filth,  by  their 
rude  Byzantine  capitals  testify  the  workmanship  of  an 
inartistic  age. 

South  of  Laleli  Djami  is  the  one  built  by  Modestos,  the 
pompous  Prefect  of  the  city  under  Valens.  Its  sixty-four 
white  marble  columns,  standing  at  unequal  distances  and 
crowned  by  capitals  of  various  orders,  are  still  erect.  But 
the  silk-spinners,  whose  livid  faces  and  crouching  forms 
once  awoke  the  womanly  compassion  of  Miss  Pardoe, 
are  long  since  dead,  and  it  serves  no  other  purpose  than  to 
receive  the  refuse  of  the  vicinity,  poured  in  through  an  iron 
grating  in  the  middle  of  the  street. 

The  foundations  of  the  Sphendone  of  the  ancient  Hippo- 
drome in  enormous  semicircular  extent  enclose  the  Cold 
Cistern,  or  the  Cistern  of  the  Palace.  Save  that  here  and 
there  the  cement  has  fallen  from  the  walls,  and  heaps  of 
rubbish  have  piled  up,  this  cistern  has  known  no  change 
in  almost  seventeen  hundred  years.  With  awe  and  with 
delight  the  traveller  gazes  on  the  colossal  arches,  and 
slakes  his  thirst  from  the  ice-cold  stream. 

Near  Ze'irek  Djami  over  the  Cistern  of  Pantocrator, 
which  aroused  the  admiration  of  the  Italian  tourist  Bonclel- 
monti  in  1422,  close-packed  Ottoman  houses  have  been 
built,  and  its  four  rows  of  Corinthian  capitals  and  columns 
can  be  no  longer  seen. 

The  Cistern  of  the  Studium,  eighty  feet  long  and  fifty- 
six  broad,  near  Mir  Achor  Djami  in  the  southwest  corner 
of  the  city,  has  been  little  damaged  by  time.  It  is  the 
chief  memento  of  that  historic  monastery  to  which  it  was 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES.  365 

attached,  and  whose  seven  hundred  monks  were  wont  to 
boast  that  its  water  was  "  more  delicious  than  wine." 
Twenty-three  coarse  Corinthian  columns,  always  dripping 
with  moisture,  uphold  the  roof.  In  the  sepulchral  damp- 
ness, favorable  to  their  handicraft  but  ruinous  to  their 
health,  the  weird  silk-spinners  come  and  go.  Outside,  in  a 
neighboring  garden,  is  the  portal,  or  arch,  supported  by  two 
Ionic  columns  of  granite,  from  which  the  water  was 
obtained. 

Near  the  Atmeidan,  south  of  the  Burnt  Column,  is  the 
now  rarely  visited  Cistern  of  Theodosius.  Its  thirty-two 
white  marble  columns,  in  four  rows,  are  surmounted  by  a 
double  capital,  the  lower  plain,  the  upper  exquisite  Corin- 
thian. One  hundred  and  twenty-nine  feet  in  length  and 
seventy-one  and  a  half  wide,  its  pillared  arches  emerging 
in  dim  religious  light,  it  seems  a  sanctuary  calm  and  still, 
from  which  the  worshippers  have  just  departed. 

Another  cistern,  very  small  but  full  of  interest,  because 
unique,  sole  representative  of  its  class,  was  unearthed  on 
the  eastern  slope  of  the  third  hill  when  the  foundations  of 
the  American  Bible  House  were  being  laid.  Only  twenty 
feet  square  by  fourteen  high,  it  belonged  to  some  smaller 
monastery  or  private  palace.  Though  dating  from  the 
sixth  century,  its  almost  perfect  preservation  would  enable 
it,  with  slight  repair,  to  serve  its  original  purpose.  The 
roof,  in  flattened  Roman  vaults,  rests  on  four  white  marble 
columns,  now  black  with  time.  Three  of  the  columns  bear 
Roman  crosses.  Three  of  the  four  Byzantine  capitals 
resemble  those  in  Kutchouk  Aya  Sophia,  save  in  their 
ruder  workmanship,  are  carved  in  vine-leaves  and  clusters 
of  grapes,  and  show  on  one  side  a  Byzantine  cross.  Close 
to  the  cistern  were  dug  up  many  sepulchral  bricks,  with  the 
stamps  well-preserved  of  the  brickmakers  Trophimos,  Con- 


3GG 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


stantios,  Petro.  Constans,  and   Domnos,   who   have   thus 
attained  a  humble  immortality. 

But  the  two  which  most  challenge  admiration  and 
wonder  arc  the  Royal  Cistern  and  that  of  Philoxenos. 
The  latter,  constructed  by  Philoxenos,  a  senator  who  came 
with  Constantine  from  Koine,  is  called  by  the  Ottomans 


Bin  Bir  Derek 


Bin  Bir  Derek,  or  Thousand  and  One  Columns  ;  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  stranger,  as  he  stands  bewildered  among  their 
far-reaching  ranges,  justifies  the  Turkish  name.  From  an 
area,  almost  as  vast  in  its  superficial  extent  as  the  floor  of 
Notre  Dame,  they  loom  upwards  in  seemingly  endless  pro- 
cession. The  all-pervading  gloom  magnifies  their  propor- 
tions and  multiplies  their  number.  The  plainness  of  the 
bulging  Byzantine  capitals,  the  coarseness  of  the  marble  in 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  367 

the  columns,  its  destitution  of  all  save  rustic  and  ingenu- 
ous ornament,  and  the  lack  of  historic  interest  and  distinct 
association,  are  all  forgotten  as  the  awe-struck  gazer 
beholds  their  lofty  and  majestic  forms. 

Nor  does  the  reality  much  belittle  the  imagination. 
The  pillared  host  consists  of  sixteen  rows  of  fourteen 
columns  each,  arranged  in  martial  symmetry.  Each 
column  is  composed  of  three  shafts,  superposed  in  equi- 
distant sockets,  and  each  individual  shaft  is  eighteen  feet 
in  length.  Thus  the  Roman  vaulted  ceiling,  when  Phi- 
loxenos  first  beheld  it  in  its  completed  grandeur,  swept 
above  at  a  distance  of  sixty  feet  from  the  floor.  Impacted 
earth  now  conceals  all  the  lower  tier  and  the  larger  part 
of  the  second  tier,  and  in  the  northwest  corner,  where 
slimy  water  constantly  trickles,  reaches  even  to  the  roof. 
This  earth,  an  incredible  Greek  tradition  states,  was  dug 
in  the  excavations  preparatory  to  the  erection  of  Sancta 
Sophia,  and  hastily  cast  in  here  that  no  time  might  be 
lost  in  its  conveyance  to  any  remoter  spot.  The  columns, 
all  of  the  same  dimensions  and  all  of  marble,  are  nearly 
eight  feet  around. 

Among  the  simple  ornaments  of  the  columns  the  cross 
is  seldom  seen ;  but  monograms  abound,  the  greater 
number  rude  and  inartistic,  yet  sometimes  original  and 
beautiful,  as  if  carved  by  a  more  skilful  hand.  The  most 
appealing  of  all  —  Christ  the  Lord,  the  confession  of 
Christian  faith,  the  sum  of  all  Christian  experience  and 
creed  before  and  since  —  is  of  frequent  occurrence.  The 
expenditure  involved  in  the  construction  of  the  cistern  was 
too  immense  for  any  private  individual  to  defray,  however 
opulent ;  so  contributions  in  money  and  material  were  do- 
nated by  wealthy  sympathizers,  each  socket,  shaft,  or  entire 
triple  column  bearing  the  name  of  the  patrician  donor,  and 


368  COXSTANTINOPLE 

handing  it  down  to  us, — the  whole  thus  forming  a 
princely  roll  of  honor,  a  partial  senatorial  list  precious 
in  the  annals  of  the  time.  Kynegios,  Eugenios,  Akakios, 
Rekios,  Eusebios,  Kynosos,  Erikios,  Eutropios,  and  many 
more  thus  preserve  the  record  of  their  existence  and  of 
their  philanthropic  generosity.  It  is  a  striking  evidence 
of  how  little  Roman  was  the  Romanized  capital  that  every 
inscription  here  is  in  Greek.  All  the  monograms  upon 
socket  or  shaft  were  incised  in  the  quarry,  or  at  least 
before  they  were  put  in  their  destined  place.  So  the  work- 
men, ignorant  and  careless  of  greatness,  have  often  placed 
them  bottom  upwards,  and  have  inscribed  the  monograms 
indifferently  from  right  to  left  or  left  to  right. 

The  most  superficial  examination  to-day  is  rendered 
difficult  by  the  universal  obscurity,  and  by  the  oily  mould 
and  earth  that  have  filled  the  cuts,  and  often  by  the  ele- 
vation of  the  incisions  above  the  floor.  I  know  of  no 
other  person  besides  myself  who  has  groped  and  pored 
for  hours  over  the  grudging  surface  of  those  grimy  col- 
umns in  endeavor  to  decipher  their  unread  tales.  But 
a  precious  harvest  of  information,  and  perhaps  of  fame, 
is  sure  to  the  antiquarian  scholar  who  solves  and  makes 
known  all  the  meaning  those  grotesque,  uncouth  mono- 
grams conceal.  Those  pillared  records,  never  so  far  read. 
may  throw  light  on  imperfect  chapters  of  Constantine's 
Byzantine  reign,  and  even  on  the  origins  of  Imperial 
Christianity. 

The  entire  cistern  crushes  by  its  vague  immensity,  — 
by  a  sense  of  overwhelming  space.  Guillaume  calls  it 
"the  grandest  and  most  magnificent  of  all  known  cis- 
terns," unaware  of  the  one  close  by,  more  magnificent  and 
grander  still.  Statistical  details  of  wealth  of  water,  reck- 
oned by  the  million  cubic  feet;    of  thousands  of  square 


STILL   EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  369 

yards  of  superficial  area ;  of  the  world's  capital  with  all 
its  teeming  animal  and  human  life,  sustained  in  case  of 
need  for  weeks  by  its  contents,  —  such  minutiae  only  con- 
fuse the  mind.  Noblest  of  all  designs,  it  was  not  built  for 
glory,  or  to  immortalize  a  conquest,  but  to  satisfy  human- 
ity's most  common,  simplest  need. 

Long  files  of  silk-spinners  are  its  daily  occupants. 
Gayer  than  most  others  of  their  class,  their  laughter  rings 
out,  and  echoes  almost  demoniac  along  the  marshalled 
columns  and  rounded  arches,  which  rebuke  all  human 
mirth  by  their  own  disdainful  stillness.  The  visitor  grows 
sick  and  weary  for  the  light  and  air  of  day.  Then,  im- 
patient to  be  gone,  he  hurries  up  the  forty-four  uneven, 
shaking  steps  of  the  crooked  staircase,  and  emerges  grate- 
ful from  the  low  stone  archway  into  the  sunshine,  which 
never  before  seemed  so  blessed  and  bright. 

The  Royal  Cistern,  the  Basilike,  well  deserves  its  name. 
Imperishably  associated  with  Constantine  its  founder,  and 
with  Justinian  its  restorer  and  rebuilder,  it  is  not  only 
unequalled  in  extent  and  most  perfect  in  proportion,  but 
surpasses  all  others  in  its  opulence  of  ethereal  columns, 
unsoiled  by  time,  in  its  panoramic  beauty,  and  in  the 
myths  and  fables  that  cluster  round  it.  The  Ottomans 
cannot  regard  it  simply  as  a  cistern,  but  give  it  the 
admiring  name  of  Yeri  Batan  Serai,  the  Underground 
Palace.  It  is  still  in  perfect  preservation,  with  the  entire 
roof  intact ;  its  three  hundred  and  thirty-six  columns, 
twelve  feet  apart,  arranged  in  twenty-eight  symmetric 
rows,  stand  each  in  place,  crowned  by  a  fine-wrought  cap- 
ital; it  still  serves  its  original  purpose,  supplying  water 
from  the  Aqueduct  of  Valens  in  as  copious  measure  as  of 
old.  Three  hundred  and  ninety  feet  long  from  east  to 
west,  and  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  feet  wide,  it   is 


24 


370  CONSTANTINOPLE 

the  vastest  in  existence ;  probably  no  other  equally  im- 
mense was  ever  provided  for  human  necessity. 

Mysterious  and  obscure,  reality  has  not  sufficed,  and  it 
has  been  described  in  all  terms  of  romance  and  exaggera- 
tion. One  author  states  that  it  underlies  the  widely  sepa- 
rate foundations  of  Sancta  Sophia  and  of  the  Mosque  of 
the  Sultan  Achmet ;  and  another,  that  it  stretches  on  more 
than  four  miles  in  length,  terminating  outside  the  city 
walls.  Peter  Gyllius,  with  a  traveller's  propensity  for  the 
marvellous  when  safe  from  contradiction,  describes  his 
torch-lit  voyages  over  it  in  quest  of  an  uncertain  haven. 
The  Ottomans  tenant  it  with  goblins,  and  hear  from  it 
death-like  voices  when  the  outer  world  is  still.  They 
cherish  legends  of  a  wedded  pair  who  embarked  on  it  for 
a  journey,  "  such  as  no  other  bride  and  bridegroom  ever 
made,"  and  never  came  back ;  of  a  headstrong  English- 
man, heedless  of  warning,  who  resolved  to  penetrate  its 
recesses,  and  of  his  friends  who  waited  for  clays  at  the 
opening  and  saw  him  no  more  ;  of  a  third  adventurer  who 
"  progressed  for  two  hours  in  a  straight  line,  ever  in  a 
wilderness  of  pillars  rising  on  all  sides,  and  losing  them- 
selves in  the  darkness,"  and  who  returned  demented. 
One  American  novelist  locates  in  it  the  thrilling  crisis 
of  a  fascinating  romance.  And  the  foremost  of  American 
writers,  in  the  "  Prince  of  India,"  renders  one  of  its 
alcoved  corners  realistic  and  romantic  with  the  love- 
frenzy  of  Demedes,  and  the  agony  and  rescue  of  the  kid- 
napped Lael. 

The  cistern  can  be  entered  only  from  the  courtyard  of 
an  Ottoman  house.  A  trap  door  covers  an  opening  whence, 
by  a  rickety  ladder  and  high  stone  steps,  one  reaches  a 
platform  which  projects  without  railing  over  the  water. 
Then  fourteen  stone  steps,  uneven,  broken,  in  places  almost 


STILL   EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES 


371 


gone,  likewise  without  railing,  conduct  to  a  lower  plat- 
form, usually  submerged.  The  lantern  hardly  breaks  the 
Stygian  darkness.  But  when  the  great  torch  is  lighted 
on  the  upper  platform,  the  effect  is  instantaneous  and 
magical.  Suddenly,  from 
profoundest  obscurity,  the 
entire  maze  of  columns 
flashes  into  being,  resplen- 
dent and  white.  The  glit- 
tering water  and  the  efful- 
gent roof  toss  the  light 
back  and  forth  in  endless 
reflection.  Not  a  sound 
breaks  the  perfect  stillness, 
save  perhaps  the  distant 
splash  of  some  utensil  let 
down  for  water  from  some 
house  above.  Nowhere  else 
does  Stamboul  afford  a 
scene  so  weird  and  enchant- 
ing. The  coruscated  col- 
umns, uprising  from  the  scintillating  water,  photograph 
themselves  upon  the  stranger's  memory,  and  linger  there 
in  vivid  distinctness  when  every  other  picture  of  Con- 
stantinople is  dim  or  forgotten. 


The   Royal  Cistern  Yeri 
Batan  Serai 


THE   COLUMNS 


In  this  city  of  crested  hills  the  loftier  structures,  not 
only  on  the  higher  elevations  but  in  the  valleys,  were 
brought  out  in  bold  prominence.  Inevitably,  in  a  luxu- 
rious and  proud  metropolis,  on  every  site  which  afforded 


372  CONSTANTINOPLE 

opportunity  for  display  there  was  reared  its  own  appro- 
priate monument.  Hence  in  ancient  Constantinople  very 
numerous  became  those  sky-piercing  columns  which  com- 
memorated a  victory  or  sought  to  perpetuate  an  indi- 
vidual fame.  The  larger  number  were  long  since  prostrate, 
and  have  disappeared ;  but  a  few  still  remain. 

Most  magnificent  and  ostentatious  of  all  was  the  col- 
umn crowned  by  the  silver  statue  of  the  Emperor  Arca- 
dius,  and  raised  by  his  son  Honorius  II.  The  shaft, 
soaring  one  hundred  and  forty  feet  above  the  plinth  and 
torus  of  the  pedestal,  appeared  a  monolith,  so  perfect  was 
the  junction  of  its  twenty  marble  tambours.  Imitative, 
but  not  original,  the  artist  sought  in  general  design  to 
reproduce  Trajan's  Column  at  Rome.  The  external  deco- 
rations, however,  represented  Byzantine  exploits,  which 
were  chiselled  spirally  around  the  shaft,  and  caused  it  to 
be  commonly  called  the  Historical  Pillar.  An  inner  spiral 
staircase  of  two  hundred  and  thirty-three  steps  conducted 
to  the  upper  pedestal  on  which  the  statue  stood.  In  im- 
perial isolation  the  calm  metallic  face  seemed  gazing  upon 
the  subject  city,  widespread  beneath,  almost  two  hundred 
feet  below.  The  labarum  rose  above  the  Emperor's  head, 
sustained  by  twin  angels,  and  bearing  the  invariable  de- 
vice of  the  Byzantine  sovereigns,  "  Jesus  Christ  is 
Conqueror." 

But  soon  the  lofty  figure  was  despoiled  by  those  natural 
forces  which  its  haughty  elevation  seemingly  defied.  In 
450  the  head  was  struck  by  lightning,  and  part  of  the 
statue  melted  ;  the  sceptred  right  hand  was  wrested  off 
by  earthquake  the  following  year,  and  two  centuries  later 
another  eathquake  shook  the  entire  statue  prostrate  and 
humble  to  the  earth.  The  column,  racked  and  rent  by 
physical  convulsions,  cracked  and  blackened  by  fire,  stood 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  373 

totteringly  erect  till  1715.  Its  fall  was  then  so  imminent, 
and  the  neighborhood  so  endangered,  that  all  excejDt  the 
lower  tambour  and  the  pedestal  was  removed. 

Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  on  her  arrival  some 
months  later,  wrote  almost  mournfully,  "  The  Historical 
Pillar  is  no  more.  It  dropped  down  about  two  years  be- 
fore I  came  to  this  part  of  the  world."  Tournefort,  more 
fortunate,  who  saw  it  in  1701,  with  enthusiasm  describes 
the  bas-reliefs  of  conquered  cities,  personified  by  female 
figures  crowned  with  tower-like  head-dresses,  and  of  fiery 
steeds,  "  which  did  no  discredit  to  the  sculptor's  skill ; " 
but  the  bas-relief  of  the  Emperor,  seated  in  a  curule  chair 
and  swaddled  in  robes  and  furs,  "  looked  like  a  teacher 
in  a  law  school." 

To-day,  in  the  Ottoman  quarter  of  Avret  Bazar,  wedged 
in  between  a  bakery  and  a  Turkish  house,  half-hidden  by 
a  miserable  hut  in  front,  is  a  huge  calcined  mass  of  gray- 
ish stone  over  thirty  feet  in  height.  Gradually  one  recog- 
nizes that  the  material  is  marble,  which  frequent  fires 
have  discolored  and  eaten  away.  A  few  disfigured  carv- 
ings are  discernible  near  the  top.  An  opening,  stuffed 
with  straw  and  rags,  indicates  that  the  shapeless  mass  is 
a  human  habitation,  but  of  the  humblest.  From  the 
kitchen  of  the  adjacent  house  one  has  direct  access  to  a 
sort  of  chamber,  in  which  ascends  a  central  spiral  stair- 
case. Climbing  round  the  newel,  up  fifty  shattered  and 
shaking  steps,  one  emerges  upon  the  upper  surface  of  the 
former  splendid  pedestal,  now  this  shapeless  stone.  Noth- 
ing else  remains  of  the  trophied  column  which,  in  his  filial 
piety,  Honorius  designed  to  be  eternal.  But  from  it,  over 
the  lowly  houses  at  its  side,  one  gazes  southward  toward 
the  Marmora  upon  a  scene  of  surpassing  loveliness.  Nor 
are  tragic  associations  wanting :  at  the   very  foot  of  the 


374  CONSTANTINOPLE 

pedestal,  in  1453,  took  place  the  sublime  deaths  of  the 
Grand  Duke  Loukas  Notaras  and  his  heroic  sons. 

At  the  side  of  the  ancient  Triumphal  Way,  in  the  centre 
of  ( Ymstantine's  Forum,  on  the  very  spot  where  tradition 
asserts  his  tent  was  pitched  when  he  besieged  Byzantium, 
towers  the  Column  of  Constantine  the  Great.  Its  round 
black  top,  a  speck  against  the  sky,  arrests  the  gaze  from 
the  Golden  Horn  and  Marmora,  and  from  all  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  city.  Its  various  modern  names  are  de- 
scriptive or  historical,  —  Porphyry  Column,  from  the  eight 
drums  of  porphyry  brought  from  Rome,  of  which  it  is 
composed ;  Burnt  Column,  as  blackened  and  partially  con- 
sumed by  fire ;  Tchemberli  Tash,  the  Hooped  Stone,  its 
Turkish  name,  because  of  the  numerous  iron  rings  with 
which  it  is  encased  to  prevent  its  fall. 

The  porphyry  drums,  bound  together  by  wide  brazen 
bands  fashioned  into  wreaths  of  laurel,  rested  upon  a 
stylobate  of  snowy  marble  nineteen  feet  in  height.  This 
in  turn  reposed  upon  a  stereobate  of  almost  equal  height, 
consisting  of  four  broad  steps.  The  characteristic  half- 
pagan  piety  and  superstition  of  that  early  age  found  ex- 
pression in  the  "  priceless  relics  "  placed  reverently  within  : 
these  were  the  alabaster  box  from  which  Mary  Magda- 
lene anointed  the  Saviour's  feet ;  the  crosses  of  the  two 
thieves ;  the  adze  with  which  Noah  fashioned  the  ark ; 
and  the  Palladium  of  Rome.  The  latter  was  considered 
by  some  the  original  Palladium  of  Troy,  and  by  others  its 
exact  copy. 

On  the  column  Constantine  caused  these  words  to  be 
engraved:  "  0  Christ,  Ruler  and  Master- of  the  World, 
to  Thee  have  I  now  consecrated  this  obedient  city,  and 
this  scepter  and  the  power  of  Rome.  Guard  it :  deliver 
it  from  every  harm."     On  that  momentous  11th  of  May 


COLUMN  OF  CONSTANTINE  THE   GREAT 


870  CONSTANTINOPLE 

when  Constantinople  was  dedicated,  upon  the  summit  of 
the  column  was  placed  the  bronze  statue  of  Apollo, 
brought  from  Athens,  and  esteemed  a  work  of  Phidias. 
But  the  head  of  Constanthie  had  been  substituted  for  that 
of  the  classic  deity,  and  the  nails  of  the  cross  replaced 
the  rays  of  the  Sun-god.  This  inscription  was  affixed  : 
"  To  Constanthie,  shining  like  the  Sun."  The  right  hand 
grasped  a  lance,  and  the  left  a  globe,  surmounted  by  a 
cross. 

An  earthquake  wrenched  off  the  globe  in  477,  and 
another  earthquake  the  lance  in  -341.  A  tornado  hurled 
down  the  statue  in  1105,  when  it  was  dashed  to  frag- 
ments, and  several  persons  killed  by  its  fall.  A  cross 
took  its  place.  During  the  reign  of  Nikephoros  III 
Botoniates,  lightning  melted  three  of  the  laurel  bands 
and  shattered  the  upper  drums.  Manuel  I  Konmenos 
replaced  the  latter  by  solid  masonry,  and  added  the  in- 
scription around  the  top,  still  distinctly  seen  :  "  The  divine 
monument,  injured  by  time,  the  pious  Emperor  Manuel 
restored."  Early  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  Ottoman 
Government,  fearing  its  fall,  encased  the  stereobate  and 
stylobate  in  a  sheathing  of  thick  masonry.  Fifty  years 
ago  the  shaft  rose  from  a  baker's  shop,  which  had  been 
built  entirely  around.  In  1888  the  column  was  repaired 
by  the  Ottoman  Government.  Such  is  its  eventful  history 
of  fifteen  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

No  words  can  express  the  reverence  with  which  the 
column  was  regarded  by  the  Byzantine  populace.  Mira- 
cles Avere  supposed  to  be  wrought  by  the  unconscious 
stone.  Horsemen  when  passing  dismounted  from  their 
steeds.  Annually,  on  September  1,  the  Emperor,  Patri- 
arch, and  clergy  chanted  around  it  thanksgiving  hymns ; 
and  a  bishop,  from  the  window  of  the  Chapel  of  Saint 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  377 

Constantine,  which  had  been  built  against  the  pedestal, 
intoned  special  prayers.  Under  its  shadow  Arius  died  his 
tragic  death  in  336.  At  its  foot  the  iconoclastic  Emperor 
Constantine  V  Kopronymos  and  the  Patriarch  Constan- 
tinos  II  solemnly  anathematized  the  Fathers  John  of 
Damascus  and  Germanos  II.  Popular  credulity  declared 
that  from  its  top  at  the  hour  of  the  city's  extremest  need, 
on  the  day  of  Ottoman  conquest,  an  angel  with  flaming 
sword  was  to  drive  back  the  Moslem  hosts. 

The  deposits  in  the  stereobate  have  tempted  antiquarians 
more  than  once.  Not  many  years  since  two  archeologists 
hired  a  house  in  the  immediate  vicinity,  and  sought  by 
mining  to  reach  the  chamber  included  in  the  four  arches 
of  the  stereobate  where  those  relics  were  preserved. 

To-day  the  column  rises,  a  spectral  outline,  destitute  of 
beauty,  gaunt  and  sombre.  But  it  possesses  a  mournful 
pre-eminence.  It  is  the  single  ancient  monument,  coeval 
with  the  capital,  linked  in  peculiar  intimacy  with  its  first 
Emperor.  Through  all  the  centuries  since  it  has  beheld, 
mute  and  passive  witness,  every  experience  which  the  bur- 
dened years  have  brought  to  Constantine's  beloved  city. 

Nothing  can  be  more  incongruous  with  a  shifting  en- 
vironment than  the  Egyptian  Obelisk,  which  in  the  Atme'i- 
dan  marks  the  exact  centre  of  the  ancient  Hippodrome. 
Everything  around  has  been  like  an  incessant  wave  of 
change.  Not  only  generations,  dynasties,  empires,  like 
playthings  of  time,  have  chased  each  other  upon  the  stage, 
but  every  other  work  of  human  hands  in  stone  or  metal  in 
the  city  has  either  fallen  in  ruin  or  been  mutilated  or 
transformed.  Tempus  edax  rerum  has  been  unable  to 
indent  or  affect  the  indifferent  adamantine  obelisk.  Abso- 
lutely the  same  is  it  to-day  as  when  Thotmes  III,  twenty 
centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  had  it  cut  and  shaped 


378  CONSTANTINOPLE 

in  the  quarries  of  the  Upper  Nile.  Constantine,  who 
brought  it  to  Constantinople,  is  nearer  in  time  to  us  than 
to  that  Egyptian  King.  Over  fifty  years  its  ponderous 
bulk  defied  the  skill  of  the  Byzantine  engineers,  and  it  lay 
prostrate  on  the  ground.  It  was  raised  in  381,  though  in 
imperfect  pose  upon  its  four  copper  cubes,  by  Proclus,  Pre- 
fect of  the  city,  to  his  own  glory  and  to  that  of  his  sover- 
eign, Theoclosius  the  Great.  The  battered  figures  on  the 
lower  of  its  two  pedestals  represent  the  manner  of  its 
erection  and  the  popular  rejoicings  at  the  achievement. 

The  hieroglyphics,  which  to  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu seemed  "  mere  antient  puns,"  were  cut  at  various 
periods,  and  contain,  Egyptian  scholars  tell  us,  the  follow- 
ing prayer  of  Thotmes  to  his  god  Phta  Sakaris :  "  Grant 
power,  and  with  the  principle  of  divine  wisdom  cover  the 
king,  0  Guardian  Sun,  vigilant  and  just  Sun,  Continuer 
of  Life.  Guide  his  innermost  thoughts  so  that  he  may 
show  himself  active  and  just  in  all  things.  Sublime  Wis- 
dom, grant  to  him  the  principle  of  thy  essence  and  the 
principle  of  thy  light,  so  that  he  may  collect  fruits  in  the 
impetuosity  of  his  career.  Four  times  he  thus  distinctly 
implores  thee,  Vigilant  Sun  of  Justice  of  all  Times.  May 
the  request  which  he  makes  to  thee  be  granted  to  him." 

The  array  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-two  human  figures 
on  the  upper  pedestal  sets  forth  the  progress  of  the  sports 
of  the  Hippodrome.  Nothing  kingly  or  imperial  can  be 
discerned  upon  the  half  obliterated  central  faces ;  never- 
theless, they  are  those  of  Theodosius,  his  Empress  Flacilla, 
and  their  sons,  Honorius  and  Arcadius,  who  were  to  divide 
the  world.  On  the  north  side  the  enthroned  Emperor, 
amid  a  throng  of  obsequious  courtiers  and  guards,  awaits 
the  beginning  of  the  games  ;  on  the  south,  the  imperial 
household  watch  their  exciting  progress ;  on  the  east,  the 


380  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Emperor,  having  risen  from  his  throne,  extends  the  laurel 
crown  in  readiness  to  reward  the  victor;  on  the  west, 
towards  the  Triumphal  Gate  of  the  Blues,  the  conqueror 
and  sovereign,  with  the  Empress  and  their  children  at  his 
side,  receives  the  homage  of  the  vanquished  Goths. 

Not  content  with  the  pictured  victory  over  mortals,  two 
inscriptions  —  the  first  in  Greek  and  the  second  in  Latin 
—  record  the  triumph  of  the  Emperor  over  the  massive 
stone :  "  The  Emperor  Theodosins,  alone  having  dared  to 
erect  the  four-sided  column  which  always  lay  a  dead 
weight  upon  the  ground,  confided  the  task  to  Proclns,  and 
in  two  and  thirty  days  the  so  prodigious  column  stood 
erect."  The  Latin  inscription  represents  the  obelisk  as 
uttering  the  humble  confession  of  its  own  defeat :  "  Diffi- 
cult was  once  the  command  to  obey  serene  sovereigns  and 
to  yield  the  victory  to  dead  kings.  But  to  Theodosins 
and  his  perennial  offspring  all  things  submit.  So  I,  too, 
was  conquered,  and  in  thirty-two  days  under  Proclus  the 
Prefect  I  was  raised  to  the  upper  air."  And  now  the 
obelisk  looks  clown,  inscrutable  as  the  Sphinx,  with  the  in- 
difference that  knows  no  change,  upon  the  vain-glorious 
inscription  of  the  forgotten  Emperor. 

The  monument  that  peers  above  the  ground  a  few  feet 
farther  south,  the  Serpent  of  Delphi,  a  perishable,  pitiable 
wreck  of  Corinthian  brass,  centres  far  greater  interest 
than  the  changeless  obelisk.  This  triple  serpent  was  the 
offering  of  Greek  devotion  to  the  god  Apollo  after  the 
Battle  of  Platrea,  when  the  Persian  hordes  had  been  for- 
ever hurled  from  Europe,  and  was  set  up  in  his  most 
sacred  shrine.  Description  of  material  and  dimension 
seems  almost  irreverent,  the  visible  object  is  so  far  trans- 
cended by  the  spirit  it  symbolizes.  It  is  a  consecrated 
trophy,  to  this   clay  perpetuating  the   deathless   triumph 


w 

- 

En 

- 

a 


382  CONSTANTINOPLE 

won  in  that  early  crisis  of  civilization  and  freedom.  It  is 
associated  with  Pausanias,  Themistocles,  Aristides,  Xerxes, 
and  Mardonius.  Its  own  tale  is  told  by  Herodotus,  Dio- 
dorus  Siculus,  the  historian  Pausanias,  Zozimos,  Sozonie- 
nos,  EusebiuSj  and  a  host  of  lesser  or  equal  writers. 

Originally  it  consisted  of  three  serpents  twined  around 
each  other,  their  heads  supporting  a  tripod  of  solid  gold. 
During  the  wars  of  Philip  of  Macedon  the  tripod  was  con- 
fiscated by  the  chiefs  of  Phocis.  When  brought  by  Con- 
stantine  from  Delphi  to  Constantinople,  a  tripod  of  infe- 
rior value  supplied  its  place.  The  superstitious  Patriarch 
John  VII  in  the  ninth  century  came  stealthily  by  night  and 
broke  off  two  of  the  heads,  believing  it  was  possessed  by 
an  evil  spirit.  Soon  afterwards  the  people  compelled  their 
restoration,  the  city  being  suddenly  infested  by  serpents,  of 
which  the  desecration  of  the  Delphic  relic  was  considered 
the  cause.  An  erroneous  Ottoman  tradition  states  that 
Sultan  Mohammed  II  the  Conqueror  with  his  mace  broke 
off  one  of  the  heads,  thereby  demonstrating  his  abhorrence 
of  idols  and  the  strength  of  his  arm.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century  the  heads  were  still  in  place,  "  with 
their  mouths  gaping."  During  the  Crimean  War  the  earth 
which  had  accumulated  around  to  the  depth  of  twelve 
feet  was  removed,  and  the  precious  monument  enclosed 
by  the  present  iron  railing. 

The  mutilated  torso  is  still  affixed  to  the  now  black  and 
broken  pedestal  on  which  Constantine  had  it  placed.  It 
is  only  eighteen  and  three-fourths  feet  in  length,  is  cracked 
and  seamed  in  many  places,  gapes  with  several  jagged 
holes,  and  terminates  in  uneven,  ragged  eds;es.  Its  interior 
is  tilled  with  stones,  thrown  in  by  superstitious  persons, 
who  thus  seek  to  avert  the  evil  eye.  Twenty-eight  coils 
still   exist.     In   the   lower   coils   on   its   northeast   side  is 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  383 

inscribed  in  characters  primitive,  archaic,  almost  embry- 
onic, the  priceless  inscription  which  vindicates  the  genu- 
ineness of  the  serpent  and  transmits  its  glory.  The 
kindly  earth,  gradually  heaped  around,  has  protected  the 
lower  coils,  but  the  letters  higher  up  have  been  worn 
away.  Nevertheless,  from  the  eighth  to  the  third  coil 
nineteen  names  can  be  discerned  of  those  immortal  cities 
to  whose  dauntless  devotion  was  due  the  deliverance  of 
Greece.  One  gazes  reverently.  The  whole  earth  over 
there  is  no  relic  of  the  classic  past  that  breathes  a  loftier 
spirit  or  is  instinctive  with  a  more  exalted  lesson.1 

Still  farther  south,  a  column  painfully  bare,  utterly  de- 
spoiled, without  one  line  of  beauty,  lifts  its  attenuated 
form  from  the  dreary  plain  of  the  Atmeidan.  Built  of 
innumerable  square  blocks  of  stone,  all  along  its  sides  the 
stones  have  dropped  away ;  but  the  column  is  still  erect, 

1  On  the  coils,  the  tenth  and  ninth  from  the  bottom,  faint  traces  of  an 
inscription  can  be  discerned.  On  the  eighth,  the  reader  can  decipher  enough 
to  complete  in  his  mind  the  names  TIPVN®IOI,  PAATAIE2.  and  ©E2riE2. 
On  the  five  remaining  coils  —  that  is,  from  the  seventh  to  the  third  inclu- 
sive —  every  letter  can  be  made  out,  some  as  easily  as  if  incised  to-day.  On 
the  seventh  coil  are  the  names  MVKANE2,  KEIOI,  MAAIOI,  and  TENIOI.  The 
TENIOI  is  in  slightly  larger  characters  than  the  other  words,  and  cut  deeper. 
On  the  sixth,  NAXIOI,  EPETPIE2,  and  M/AAKIDE2 ;  on  the  fifth,  2TVPE2, 
FAAEI0NE2.  and  TOTEIDAIATAI;  on  the  fourth,  AEVKADIOI,  FANAKTOPIE2, 
KV0NIOI,  and  2I0)NIOI;  on  the  third,  AMrpAKIOTAI  and  AEFPEATAI. 
These  words  are  inscribed  one  under  another  in  parallel  lines  on  the  north- 
east side  of  the  monument.  The  letters  are  from  |  to  •£  of  an  inch  in  length. 
In  this  inscription,  made  certainly  not  later  than  475  n.  c,  the  digamma  F 
appears ;  also  we  have  CD  for  <&,  ©  for  ©,  X  for  3,  \17  for  X.  D  for  A,  and  the 
vowels  J2  and  H  are  not  used. 

On  the  thirteenth  coil  one  archeologist  supposes  the  following  words : 
ANA0EMATONEAANON;  another  archeologist,  ANA©EMArOMEDON ;  and 
a  third,  ArOAONI0EO2TA2ANTANA©EMAPOMEDON.  On  the  twelfth  coil 
the  majority  suppose  AAKEDAIMONIOI,  A©  ANAIOI,  and  KORIN®IOI ;  on  the 
eleventh,  TECEATAI,  2EKVONIOI,  and  AICINATAI;  on  the  tenth,  MECAPE2, 
EriDAVPIOI,  and  ER\]/OMENIOI ;  on  the  ninth,  0AEIA2IOI,  TFOZANIOI, 
and  EPMIONE2,  thus  including  the  thirty-one  Greek  cities. 


384  CONSTANTINOPLE 

apparently  too  weak  to  fall.  The  name  of  its  builder  is 
lost,  as  if  reluctant  that  so  melancholy  a  pile  should  trans- 
mit his  memory.  Constantine  VIII  Porphyrogenitus,  less 
fortunate,  in  the  tenth  century  repaired  the  monument, 
and  is  commonly  regarded  as  its  founder.  Once  it  was 
resplendent  to  the  eve  sheathed  from  top  to  bottom  in 
plates  of  burnished  brass,  and  it  glittered  dazzlingly  in 
the  sun.  The  brazen  plates  were  torn  off  and  melted  by 
the  soldiers  of  the  Fourth  Crusade ;  everywhere  are  visi- 
ble the  gaping  holes  left  by  the  bolts  and  nails  which  held 
them  in  place.  In  its  perfect  poise  it  is  still  a  marvel.  It 
seems  as  if  the  faintest  wind  must  blow  it  down  ;  but  so 
perfect  is  its  construction,  so  exact  its  centre  of  gravity, 
that,  despite  earthquake  and  tornado,  its  battered,  worn- 
off  pyramidal  apex  still  clings  one  hundred  and  one  feet 
high  above  the  ancient  surface  of  the  arena. 

A  triple  stereobate  supports  the  marble  block  which 
serves  as  pedestal.  Two  of  its  sides  are  completely  hid- 
den by  matted  ivy.  Through  the  tangled  vine  on  the 
third  or  eastern  side  the  following  inscription  may  be 
easily  deciphered :  "  Constantine,  the  present  Emperor,  to 
whom  Romanos,  glory  of  government,  is  the  son,  restores 
superior  to  its  former  appearance  the  four-sided  marvel  of 
lofty  height  which  had  been  injured  by  time.  As  the 
Colossus  of  Rhodes  was  a  marvel  there,  so  is  this  Colossus 
of  Constantine  a  marvel  here." 

In  grateful  contrast  to  this  unsightly  ruin  is  the  Column 
of  Marcian,  Kiz  Tash,  the  Maiden's  Stone,  south  of  the 
Moscpie  of  Sultan  Mohammed.  On  a  tiny  terrace  in  a 
private  garden,  remote  from  the  street,  in  a  dense  Ottoman 
quarter,  it  rises,  excpiisite  and  beautiful,  but  solitary,  as  if 
forgotten  by  time.  Its  marble  pedestal,  once  white,  but 
now  dark  and  mutilated,  is  seven  feet  high.     The  shaft  is 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  385 

a  granite  monolith,  sixty  feet  in  length,  crowned  by  a 
capital  of  the  composite  order.  On  the  capital  is  a  dam- 
aged stone,  no  longer  in  the  exact  centre,  on  which  the 
statue  stood.  To  this  the  charming  traveller.  Sir  George 
Wheler,  evidently  refers  when  he  says  that  in  1070  he 
saw  upon  the  capital  an  urn  containing  the  Emperor's 
heart.  Roman  eagles  with  extended  wings  seem  flying 
from  the  upper  corners.  A  graceful,  headless  figure 
emerges  from  the  northeast  corner  of  the  pedestal,  hut 
the  corresponding  figure  on  the  opposite  corner  is  entirely 
gone.  On  the  north  side  the  brass  and  nails  forming  the 
inscription  have  fallen  away  ;  but  in  the  defaced  incisions 
of  the  stone  the  following  letters  can  be  traced :  — 

[PK]IXCIFI8   HAXC   STATUAM   MARCIAXI 

CEENE   TOEUMQUE 
[TEEEJIUS   VOVIT   QUOD   T  ATI  ANUS 
OPUS 

The  column  and  locality  have  their  share  of  legends 
and  traditions.  The  common  appellation.  Maiden's  Stone, 
is  due  to  its  supposed  mysterious  faculty  in  discerning 
unfortunate  women  from  those  who  had  never  sinned. 
The  latter  might  approach  in  innocent  security ;  but  the 
garments  of  the  former,  by  some  invisible  but  resistless 
power,  were  made  to  rise  and  float  above  their  heads. 
Scandal  gloated  over  the  tradition  that  the  dancer  Theo- 
dora dwelt  in  the  vicinity  before  she  wedded  Justinian 
and  was  made  sharer  of  his  throne.  It  was  commonly 
asserted  that  human  vision  was  deceptive,  and  that  the 
statue  bore  not  the  grim,  septuagenarian  visage  of  the 
soldier  Marcian,  but  the  bewitching  features  of  ever  youth- 
ful Aphrodite.  When  at  last  the  statue  fell,  it  was  nar- 
rated that  a  kinswoman  of  the  Emperor  Justin  IT   hurled 

vol.  i.  —  25 


38G  CONSTANTINOPLE 

it    down,   revengeful   for  the  tale  it  told   of  her  private 

history  while  she  was  passing  in  state  to  the  palace. 

Little  inferior  in  height,  of  less  majestic  beauty,  but  of 

far  richer  association,  is  the   lonely  column  which  keeps 

guard  as  sentinel  in  a  grove  of  trees  on  the  eastern  spur 

of  the  Seraglio.     The  ground  on  which  it  stands  is  within 

the  ancient   limits  of  classic  Byzantium.     It  is  a  simple 

monolithic  shaft  of  the  whitest  marble,  cleft  with  many  a 

rent  and  fissure,  and  touched  with  a  delicate  grayish  tint 

by  time.     Its  thrilling  votive  inscription,  which  is  easily 

legible, 

FORT UN AE 

EEDUCAE   OB 

DEVICTOS   GOTHOS, 

is  an  eloquent  memorial  of  the  last  martial  victories  of 
the  undivided  Roman  Empire,  and  of  the  consequent  bap- 
tism of  Athanaric  the  Gothic  King. 

It  was  reared  in  331  by  Theodosius  the  Great,,  to  com- 
memorate his  triumphs  over  those  fierce  hordes  heretofore 
resistless.  On  its  elaborate  Corinthian  capital  he  placed 
his  equestrian  statue  and  the  following  inscription  :  "  Thou 
didst  arise,  another  brilliant  Sun,  lightbearing  from  the 
east,  0  calm-minded  Theodosius,  upholder  of  mankind, 
having  at  thy  feet  the  ocean  with  the  boundless  earth. 
Surrounded  on  every  side  by  glory,  thou  magnanimous 
dost  subdue  a  proud  and  fiery  horse."  Statue  and  inscrip- 
tion long  since  disappeared ;  the  capital  remains  in  all  its 
high-wrought  beauty.  On  it,  according  to  Greek  tradition, 
the  pillar  saint,  Daniel  of  the  Bosphorus,  lived  over  twenty 
years.  Later  it  serve'd  as  means  of  execution,  like  the 
Tarpeian  rock,  condemned  criminals  being  hurled  from  its 
top  ;  thus  the  Latin  Crusaders  dashed  to  death  their  pris- 
oner, the  Byzantine  Emperor  Alexios  V  Mourtzouphles. 


P. 
S3 
<1 

OQ 

P 
I— I 

n 
o 


S3 

s 
p 
p 
o 
o 

I — I 


388  CONSTANTINOPLE 


THE   PALACES 


East  of  Aivan  Serai  Kapou,  inside  the  city  wall,  is  a 
foul,  repulsive  ruin.  It  is  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet 
in  length,  and  about  two-thirds  as  wide ;  enough  remains 
to  show  that  it  must  have  been  three  stories  high.  The 
thick  walls  of  brick  and  mortar  are  of  ninth-century 
workmanship.  A  lofty  arched  roof  covers  a  main  central 
hall,  on  which  open  rooms  of  various  size  and  height. 
The  southern  part,  called  Yaghourt  Khan  by  the  Otto- 
mans, is  filled  with  rotten  timbers  and  the  debris  of  de- 
molished buildings;  a  portion  of  the  northern  part  is  used 
as  a  charcoal  magazine.  The  ground  reeks  with  filth  of 
every  sort :  throughout  are  vile  odors,  all  mixed  with  the 
mouldy  smell  of  decay.  No  spot  can  be  more  repellent, 
or  less  suggestive  of  youth  and  beauty.  Surely  there 
never  was  a  place  here  for  a  maiden's  foot,  and  no  girlish 
laughter  has  ever  echoed  in  these  rooms,  now  so  sickening 
with  fetid  air. 

Nevertheless,  this  pile  was  once  a  palace.  It  was  reared 
by  the  Emperor  Theophilos,  and  designed  by  the  doting 
father  as  a  gift  to  Thekla,  Anna,  Anastasia,  and  Pulcheria, 
his  idolized  daughters.  As  they  grew  to  womanhood,  it 
became  those  princesses'  favorite  abode.  Here  Thekla  re- 
fused the  suit  of  the  grandson  of  Charlemagne,  preferring 
to  remain  with  her  sisters  within  these  walls  rather  than 
to  sit  upon  the  imperial  German  throne.  None  of  the 
sisters  wedded.  For  years  they  dwelt  here  together.  At 
last  they  wearied  of  the  world,  forsook  their  palace,  and 
died  as  nuns. 

The  Palace  of  Hormisclas,  or  of  Justinian,  is  romantic 
in  its  origin  and  history.     No  less  romantic  is  its  craggy 


M       S5 


390  CONSTANTINOPLE 

southern  wall,  rising  high  above  the  Marmora,  and  visible 
from  far  upon  the  sea.  The  seven  brick  arches,  lofty  and 
wide ;  the  three  spacious  doors,  with  monolithic  door- 
posts, twelve  feet  high ;  the  exquisite  acanthus  leaves 
finely  chiselled  upon  the  lintels ;  the  grand  marble  col- 
umns, once  supporting  dizzy  balconies,  and  projecting  fifty 
feet  above  the  water ;  and  below,  close  to  the  sea,  the 
horizontal  row  of  snow-white  marble  slabs,  —  arrest  the 
traveller's  attention  on  his  passing  ship,  and  awake  ima- 
gination to  departed  splendor. 

But  on  the  landward  side  all  the  impressive  picturesque- 
ness  vanishes.  There  one  does  not  approach  the  wall,  so 
densely  packed  against  it  and  against  one  another  are  the 
malodorous  shanties  of  the  refugees.  The  Roumelian  Rail- 
way passes  close  by  over  subterranean  chambers  that  were 
laid  bare  and  then  cemented  over  when  the  railway  was 
constructed  in  1869.  A  few  feet  farther  north  is  a  colos- 
sal wall,  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  in  length  and  fifty 
high,  which  rests  on  great  arches,  through  which  a  still 
earlier  wall  is  seen.  These  ruins  are  stately  and 
imposing. 

Hormisdas,  a  Sassanide  prince  and  exile,  fled  to  Con- 
stantinople to  save  his  endangered  life,  and,  enraptured 
with  this  spot,  obtained  from  Constant ine  permission  to 
build  such  a  palace  as  might  remind  him  of  his  Persian 
home.  Two  hundred  years  later  it  became  the  property 
of  Justin  I,  and  was  1  test  owed  by  him  on  his  nephew 
Justinian,  then  a  consul.  Hither,  on  the  marriage  of  the 
latter,  he  brought  his  bride,  the  actress  Theodora,  and 
here  they  dwelt,  until  together  they  ascended  the  throne. 
Xo  female  triumph  in  any  age  has  surpassed  the  victory 
Theodora  won  when  she,  the  hated,  slandered,  outlawed 
woman,    crossed    the    threshold    of    this    then    radiant 


STILL   EXISTING   ANTIQUITIES 


'-!< 


Ul 


palace  as   prospective  Empress,  and  already  the  Csesar's 
spouse. 

No  other  palace  has  preserved  so  much  of  its  shape  and 
former  comeliness  as  the  Palace  of  the  Hebdomon,  now 
Tekour  Serai,  on  the  northern  summit  of  the  double- 
crested  sixth  hill.     Its  dismantled  though  lordly  outline 


Palace  of  the  Hebdomon 


dominates  the  Golden  Horn  and  the  northern  regions 
of  the  city,  and  justifies  the  magnificent  prominence  of 
its  site. 

It  anciently  bore  many  names,  —  Palace  of  Constantine, 
of  Justinian,  of  Belisarius,  as  each  was  in  turn  its  re- 
puted founder.  The  humbler  Greeks  to-day  still  call  it 
the  House  of  Belisarius.     But  through  the  Middle  Ages 


392  CONSTANTINOPL  E 

its  common  title  was  Palace  of  the  Hebdomon,  or  Seventh 
District,  because  this  portion  of  the  city  was  formerly 
appropriated  to  the  Seventh  Corps  of  the  heretical  Gothic 
guards.  A  dozen  derivations  may  be  assigned  to  its 
present  Turkish  name  of  Tekour  Serai,  and  each  Turkish 
scholar  gives  a  different  meaning  thereto.  When  it  was 
erected,  or  by  whom,  is  uncertain.  The  lower  story  seems 
as  old  as  Oonstantine,  while  the  peculiar  layers  of  brick 
and  mortar  near  the  top  seem  stamped  with  the  auto- 
graph of  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  century.  Much  of  its 
history  is  obscure.  The  massacre  in  134-3  of  the  Dictator 
Apokaukos,  guardian  and  tyrant  of  the  youthful  Emperor 
John  V,  by  the  two  hundred  prisoners  whom  he  had  con- 
fined and  tortured,  but  among  whom  he  rashly  ventured, 
is  one  of  its  most  thrilling  episodes. 

The  part  now  remaining  is  a  rectangle,  over  seventy 
feet  in  length  by  forty  broad.  On  the  east  a  huge  cen- 
tral window,  flanked  by  smaller  windows  on  either  side, 
opens  over  gigantic  projecting  pillars.  On  them  was  sus- 
pended the  ancient  balcony,  forty  feet  above  the  ground, 
from  which  the  wide-reaching  and  varied  view  must  have 
been  superb.  On  the  south,  beneath  seven  windows  of 
various  elevation,  shape,  and  size,  the  wall  is  built  in 
large  mosaic  of  peculiar  pattern. 

The  only  entrance  is  from  the  north.  One  clambers 
over  great  heaps  of  broken  glass  to  the  ancient  court- 
yard. In  front  rises  the  north  side  of  the  palace,  sup- 
ported on  a  central  pier  and  granite  columns,  itself 
mutilated  and  timeworn.  vet  fair  and  beautiful,  with  its 
rows  of  rich  mosaic.  The  floors  have  fallen  ;  but  traces  of 
stairways  may  be  discerned  adhering  to  the  inner  walls. 
Clinging  to  crevices  and  jutting  stones,  one  climbs  along 
the  sides,  high   up  through  a  southwest  window,  to  the 


STILL   EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES 


393 


slight  abutment  whence,  according  to  Greek  tradition, 
Justinian  with  his  own  hands  hurled  his  suspected  Gen- 
eral Belisarius  to  the  pavement  below.  The  legend  adds 
that  the  hero  was  uninjured  by  his  fearful  fall,  and,  thus 
having  proved  his  innocence,  enjoyed  the  Emperor's  con- 
fidence and  affection  ever  after. 


Interior  of  the  Palace  of  the  Hebdomon 


From  the  southwest  corner  of  the  second  story  one  may 
creep  to  the  adjacent  fortress,  the  Tribunal  of  the  Heb- 
domon, where  were  formerly  quartered  the  guards  of  the 
palace;  or,  looking  from  the  windows  on  the  west,  the  eye 
may  range  outside  the  city  walls  upon  the  martial  Plain 
of  the  Hebdomon,  the  exercise  ground   of  Byzantine   ar- 


394  CONSTANTINOPLE 

mies,  and  away  over  the  rounded  hills  which  saw  the 
bivouac  of  so  many  hostile  hosts. 

The  dilapidation  of  the  palace  since  the  Ottoman  (Jon- 
quest  has  been  constant  but  gradual.  Under  Soule'iman 
the  Magnificent,  elephants  were  kept  in  its  degraded  base- 
ment story,  and  hence  Von  Hammer  has  imagined  that  it 
served  only  as  a  menagerie  under  the  Byzantine  emperors. 
Less  than  two  hundred  years  ago  most  of  its  columns, 
its  floors,  and  marble  stairways  were  still  in  place. 
The  marble  window  casements  were  intact  till  within  a 
century.  The  Byzantine  double-headed  eagle  still  spread 
its  carved  wings  on  the  lintel  of  a  window ;  on  the  capi- 
tals of  the  columns  appeared  the  royal  lilies  of  France ; 
and  above,  indicative  of  victory  over  the  Latin  emperors, 
was  the  monogram  of  the  Palaiologoi.  Not  long  ago 
Jewish  glass-blowers  took  possession,  and  crowded  every 
corner  with  their  huts  and  furnaces.  Some  were  burned 
to  death,  and  all  their  hovels  utterly  destroyed  by  a  great 
fire  in  1864.  Since  then  the  empty  walls  have  been 
abandoned  save  by  the  antiquary,  the  tourist,  and  the 
beggar. 

One  day  in  549  Justinian,  wearing  his  imperial  robes, 
came  in  the  utmost  pomp  from  the  Great  Palace  to  the 
Palace  of  the  Hebdomon.  Suddenly  the  panic-stricken 
courtiers  observed  that  its  most  precious  ornament,  an 
immense  diamond,  had  disappeared  from  the  imperial 
crown.  Diligent  and  protracted  search  was  unavailing, 
and  at  last  the  incident  was  forgotten.  Nine  centuries 
later,  soon  after  the  Ottoman  Conquest,  a  shepherd  found 
a  shining  stone  in  the  rubbish  of  Tekour  Serai.  It  passed 
from  hand  to  hand  as  a  bagatelle.  A  Jew  in  his  eager- 
ness to  obtain  it  aroused  suspicion.  The  more  he  offered, 
the  more  was  demanded.     Despairing  of  its  acquisition,  he 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  395 

notified  the  Grand  Vizir  of  the  existence  of  the  stone.  At 
once  it  was  seized  by  the  Grand  Vizir,  and  presented  to 
Sultan  Mohammed  II.  The  Ottomans  declare  that  it  then 
weighed  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  carats  :  they  call  it 
Tchoban  Tashi,  the  Shepherd's  Stone ;  esteem  it  the  finest 
diamond  in  the  world,  and  with  special  care  preserve 
among  the  treasures  of  the  Sultan  the  long-lost  jewel  of 
Justinian. 


THE  PRISON   OF  ANEMAS 

All  through  the  Middle  Ages  palace  and  prison  were 
close  together  in  shocking  intimacy.  Commonly  the  two 
formed  but  a  single  structure  in  frightful  twinship,  or  the 
halls  of  the  one  reposed  on  the  dungeons  of  the  other. 
The  occupants  of  the  lighted  rooms  above  were  in  con- 
stant terror  of  the  inmates  of  the  dark  cells  below.  In 
necessary  proportion  to  the  grandeur  and  freedom  of  the 
one  were  the  solid  walls  and  ponderous  fetters  of  the  other. 
Among  the  Byzantines  the  Palace  of  Blachernai  for  five 
hundred  years  surpassed  every  other  palatial  abode  in 
rank  and  splendor ;  so  did  its  unnatural  but  inevitable 
twin,  the  prison  of  Anemas,  exceed  in  strength  and  hope- 
lessness every  other  dungeon  horror  of  Constantinople. 
When  or  by  whom  it  was  constructed  was  forgotten.  The 
Ottomans  apparently  never  knew  of  its  existence,  and  it 
had  no  part  in  history  after  the  Concpiest.  Its  locality 
was  un-identified  by  the  moderns,  despite  constant  refer- 
ences in  the  Byzantine  authors,  over  whose  pages  its  name 
hung  like  a  grisly  nightmare.  It  seemed  that  nothing  of 
it  was  left  behind  save  its  execrable  memory. 

About  forty  years  ago  the  lynx-eyed  archeologist  Paspa- 
tis  remarked  a  half-closed  crannied  hole  on  the  northern 


396 


CONSTANTINOPLE 


side  of  one  of  the  northern  towers,  fronting  the  ancient 
site  of  the  Palace  of  the  Blachernai.  With  difficulty  and 
danger  climbing  up,  he  wedged  himself  through  the  nar- 
row opening.  For  a  distance  of  thirty  feet  he  crawled 
along  in  the  darkness,  through  a  vaulted  passage  less 
than    two    feet    high    and   but   little   wider.       Thence    he 


Prisons  and  Castle  of  Anemas 


emerged  into  a  tiny  room,  slimy,  tomb-like,  stygian,  but 
where  at  least  a  man  could  stand  erect.  The  candle  flick- 
ered in  the  mephitic  vapors,  and  only  served  to  make  the 
blackness  darker.  Nevertheless,  he  felt  that  something 
was  discovered.  When,  better  provided,  a  few  days  later 
he  repeated  his  adventure,  he  realized  with  an  antiquary  s 
unutterable  exultation  that  he  had  found  the  prison  of 
Anemas. 

Since  then  its  accursed  recesses  have  been  accessible  to 


STILL   EXISTING   ANTIQUITIES 


397 


whoever  had  the  will  and  the  nerve  to  enter.  Neverthe- 
less, its  visitors  have  been  strangely  few.  Many  a  time, 
with  its  discoverer  or  with  others,  I  have  groped  along  its 
chambers,  and  sounded  its  walls,  in  the  effort  to  learn 
more  of  it  or  of  the  history  it  could  unfold.  My  last 
visit,  in  1890,  stands  out  as  distinct  in  my  recollection  as 
if  made  to-day. 

On  the  right  of  the  tiny  chamber,  where,  rising  from 
hands  and  knees,  one  first  stands  erect,  at  the  end  of  an- 
other passage,  is  a  spacious  chamber  now  obstructed. 

In  front  another 
opening,  irregularly 
shaped,  leads  to  a 
cylindrical  and 
vaulted  room,  be- 
yond which  is  a 
winding  ascending 
and  descending  pas- 
sage, a  common  By- 
zantine substitute 
for  a  stairway.  De- 
scent is  impossible, 

so  completely  filled  is  it  with  accumulated  earth.  Mount- 
ing round  a  newel  of  blunted  corners,  leaving  walled-up 
niches  and  blocked  doors  on  the  right,  one  readies  a  lofty 
apartment,  forty  feet  in  length  and  thirty-live  in  width. 
In  the  farther  corner  is  a  large  round  opening  in  the 
floor,  to  which  a  like  aperture  in  the  ceiling  corresponds. 
Dim  light  filters  in  through  a  high  loophole  in  the  corner. 
Returning  to  the  winding  passage  and  constantly  ascend- 
ing, one  struggles  over  garbage  and  nameless  filth,  to  a 
strong  iron  grating  at  the  very  top,  which  prevents  further 
progress.      This  grating  is  in  the  Mosqueyard  of  A'ivaz 


Fihst  Chamber  in  Prison  of  Anemas 


398  CONSTANTINOPLE 

Effencli  Djami,  sixty  feet  above  the  level  of  the  ground 
below ;  and  through  it  the  inmates  of  the  Mosque  throw 
in  their  refuse,  ignorant  where  it  goes,  and  knowing  only 
that  somehow  it  finds  a  vast  receptacle  beneath.  This 
circular  passage  was  the  direct  means  of  communication 
between  the  Palace  of  Blachernai  and  the  prison.  In 
Scott's  realistic  tale,  "  Count  Robert  of  Paris,"  this  winding 
way  is  called  the  "Ladder  of  Acheron."  Where  one  now 
picks  a  path  over  the  pollution  and  foulness,  the  vivid 
Scotch  romancer  pictures  that  daintiest  of  Byzantine  prin- 
cesses, Anna  Komnena,  leaning,  self-forgetful  in  her  dis- 
tress, on  the  arm  of  the  gallant  Hereward. 

Starting  again  from  the  tiny  chamber,  and  dragging 
one's  self  through  another  unobstructed  passage,  less  than 
two  feet  wide  and  scarcely  higher,  one  arrives  at  a  room 
which  runs  east  and  west,  thirty-one  feet  long  and  nine 
and  a  half  feet  wide.  Its  height  is  over  forty  feet ;  but  on 
the  walls  holes  left  by  rafters  indicate  a  second  floor 
which  has  fallen  away.  This  is  but  one  of  twelve  identi- 
cal cells,  of  exactly  the  same  dimensions,  separated  by 
walls  over  five  feet  thick,  and  connected  by  similar  arched 
doorways.  A  succession  of  doorways  above  in  the  fallen 
second  story  corresponds  to  those  beneath.  Some  of  the 
cells  are  so  piled  with  earth  and  stones  that  the  mass 
reaches  higher  than  the  level  of  the  second  floor.  The 
cells  toward  the  south  are  gullied  like  a  hillside,  and  filled 
far  toward  their  vaulted  ceiling  by  the  deposits  which 
every  storm  washes  in  through  a  fissure  in  the  roof. 
These  rooms  are  doubtless  but  a  part,  perhaps  only  a 
small  proportion,  of  the  cells  once  existing  in  this  awful 
prison,  and  which  some  fortunate  antiquary  in  time  may 
reveal.  They  are  constructed  of  massive  hewn  stone  and 
brick.     Well  might  the  blind  and  helpless  prisoner,  once 


STILL   EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  399 

the  dauntless  Ursel,  have  spent  three  patient  years  in  use- 
lessly boring  through  a  single  wall.  None  of  the  cells  arc 
windowed.  A  few  more  favored  are  pierced  by  the  small- 
est loopholes,  high  up  on  the  sides,  through  which  the 
faintest  light  hardly  ventures  in. 

Deathlike  stillness  reigns  throughout,  broken  only  by 
the  water  oozing  and  dripping  from  the  stones,  and  by  the 
swarming  bats,  with  whose  putrefying  droppings  the  air  is 
poisoned.  Frightful  as  these  dungeons  were  of  old,  in  their 
abandonment  and  desolation  they  seem  more  hideous  now. 

To  write  the  list  of  their  former  tenants  is  to  call  over 
the  weary  roll  of  Byzantine  misfortune  and  despair.  Here 
was  shut  the  high-born  Anemas,  who  has  wrapped  around 
this  prison,  built  centuries  before  his  day,  the  legacy  of 
his  undying  name.  Here  in  his  disdainful  silence  the 
haughty  Gregory  of  Trebizond  lay  speechless,  even  in  his 
fetters  aspiring  to  a  crown.  Here  long  remained  that 
most  atrocious  figure  of  Byzantine  history,  Andronikos  I 
Komnenos,  thrown  into  still  blacker  outline  by  his  saintly 
and  devoted  wife,  who,  for  the  love  of  him,  sought  and 
obtained  the  boon  of  sharing  his  deserved  captivity ;  and 
here,  in  the  squalor  and  wretchedness  of  their  cell,  their 
ill-fated  babe,  Kalo-John,  was  born. 

The  Ottoman  Prince  Kontos  and  another  Andronikos, 
each  the  heir  of  his  father's  throne  and  each  a  medieval 
Absalom,  having  been  defeated  in  their  unholy  and  parri- 
cidal rebellion,  were  imprisoned  in  one  cell  together  here. 
The  Byzantine  prince  escaped,  and  in  the  turn  of  fortune 
dethroned  his  father  and  cast  him  and  his  two  younger 
brothers  into  the  same  cell.  Again  fortune  turned,  and 
the  liberated  Emperor  shut  up  his  son,  once  more  a 
prisoner,  in  the  very  room  that  had  borne  so  large  a  part 
in  both   their  lives.      One   hardly   lingers    on    the    more 


400  CONSTANTINOPLE 

thrilling  scenes  in  "  Count  Robert  of  Paris/'  which  the  great 
novelist  locates  here  ;  for  in  the  prison  of  Anemas  the 
wonders  of  his  romance  pale  before  the  wilder  romances 
of  history.  Paspatis  sums  up  all  the  long  story  in  a  few 
simple  words.  "These,"  he  says,  "  are  the  far-famed 
prisons  of  Anemas,  where  once  were  heard  the  groans  of 
captive  emperors  and  the  sobs  of  empresses." 

THE   TOWEE   OF   GALATA 

The  Tower  of  Galata  is  a  stupendous  hollow  cylinder, 
remarkable  for  its  bulk  and  height.  Gaunt  and  white 
and  bare,  it  looms  into  the  sky  from  the  most  elevated 
part  of  Galata,  and  spreads  upon  the  horizon  of  every 
stranger  as  he  gazes  northward  on  his  arrival  from  the 
rail-car  or  steamer.  It  dwindles  into  ant-hills  the  four- 
storied  houses  at  its  foot.  No  monument  exists  on  the 
northern  side  of  the  Golden  Horn  to  be  compared  with  it 
in  either  impressiveness  or  size.  It  is  at  once  Byzantine, 
Italian,  and  Ottoman,  in  its  architecture  and  associations. 

Anastasius  I  in  the  fifth  century  reared  it,  though  to 
less  than  half  its  present  height,  as  the  bulwark  or  acrop- 
olis of  the  farther  shores  of  the  Golden  Horn.  When 
the  cholera  in  542  swept  away  ten  thousand  persons  daily, 
and  pits  could  not  be  dug  fast  enough  to  receive  the  dead, 
the  tower  afforded  a  ready  receptacle,  wherein  corpses  were 
packed  to  the  very  top,  jammed  in.  pressed  down  upon 
each  other  in  grewsome  equality.  It  was  the  main  for- 
tress of  the  Genoese  of  Galata  during  several  hundred 
years.  They  piled  it  higher  in  1348,  and  higher  yet  in 
1 441),  when  trembling  at  the  approaching  torrent  of  the 
Ottomans.  During  those  years  it  was  called  Tower  of 
Christ   and  Tower  of  the  Cross,  from  a  gigantic  Latin 


STILL   EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES 


401 


cross  by  which  it  was  surmounted,  and  which  the  Con- 
queror removed  after  the  city's  .surrender.  Mohammed  II 
built  it  higher  still,  and  capped  the  whole  with  a-  sharp- 
pointed,  conelike  roof.     Burned  in  1794,  this  was  replaced 


Tower  of  Gal  at  a 


by  Selim  III,  to  be  burned  again  in  1824,  and  again 
restored  by  Mahmoud  II.  The  present  succession  of 
diminishing  cylinders,  now  adorning  its  summit  with  the 
distant  grace  of  turret  upon  turret,  is  the  device  and 
achievement  of  Sultan  Abd-ul  Medjid. 

The  lower  half  of  the  tower  is  pierced  by  loopholes, 
which,    though    made    with    no    such    design,    break    the 


26 


402  CONSTANTINOPLE 

monotony  of  the  surface  ;  then  come  the  tiers  of  windows, 
row  on  row;  and  over  all  the  lancelike  staff,  tipped  by 
the  glittering  spearhead,  whence,  on  festivals  and  on  the 
sacred   Friday,  floats  the  flag  of  the  imperial  dynasty. 

As  one  stands  within  and  peers  upwards  towards  the  top, 
he  is  crushed  with  a  sense  of  stone  immensity.  The  rope. 
swaying  in  the  vacuum  from  above,  seems  fastened  to  the 
sky.  Does  one  meditate  the  ascent,  he  grows  half  dizzy 
before  he  begins  to  climb.  The  walls,  twelve  feet  in 
thickness,  conceal  the  succession  of  stone  stairways,  not 
winding  spirally,  but  ascending,  by  ingenious  contrivance, 
stairway  over  stairway.  At  length  the  side  steps  cease, 
and  one  emerges  upon  a  staging,  where,  platform  above 
platform,  commence  rooms  in  which  human  beings  reside, 
dwelling  in  the  void  between  heaven  and  earth.  At  last 
one  reaches  the  wide  round  chamber  which  stretches  over 
the  entire  diameter,  and  whose  circumference  is  the  mighty 
walls.  Here  fire  patrols  pace  ceaselessly,  scrutinizing  with 
their  glasses  every  quarter  of  the  city.  Thirty-four  steps, 
up  a  circular  staircase,  conduct  hence  to  a  room  loftier 
still,  wherein  may  be  seen  the  ancient  tocsin  of  the  tower. 
Its  alarum  has  swelled  out  many  times  over  these  hills  its 
note  of  triumph,  or  of  terror  and  warning;  1  ait,  dusty, 
rusted,  thrust  aside,  it  is  tongueless  now.  It  is  said  that 
the  cats  which  one  meets  at  every  turn,  born  in  these 
regions  of  upper  air,  have  never  set  foot  on  the  ground 
below.  But  multitudinous  broods  of  whirring  doves  some- 
how here  perpetuate  their  own  family,  although  furnish- 
ing the  constant  sustenance  of  their  feline  foes. 

One  is  allowed  to  climb  no  farther.  Through  the  deep- 
cased  windows  of  this  highest  room  one  passes,  if  he  dares, 
to  an  outer  platform,  which  is  surrounded  by  an  iron 
balustrade.     Human    language    is    inadequate  to  shadow, 


STILL   EXISTING   ANTIQUITIES  403 

even  faintly,  the  unutterable  loveliness  and  magnificence 
of  the  view.  Nothing  on  this  globe  can  surpass  it.  Who- 
ever has  gazed,  awestruck  and  enraptured,  on  the  most 
splendid  scenes  that  nature  unfolds  before  the  eye  from 
other  lofty  heights,  must  confess  that  this  is  incomparable 
in  its  panoramic  variety  and  sublimity. 

STRAY  WAIFS   OF  ANTIQUITY 

Nothing  is  more  typical  of  Constantinople  than  the 
fugitive  inscriptions,  the  rooms  whose  early  usage  is  for- 
gotten, and  the  disconnected  blocks  of  masonry,  hardly 
more  than  medkeval  rubbish,  found  in  every  quarter  of  the 
city.  To  each  attaches  the  interest  of  conjecture  and  the 
pathos  of  namelessness,  as  one  seeks  in  vain  to  solve  the 
enigma  of  its  history  and  depict  the  structure  of  which 
centuries  ago  it  was  a  part.  Everywhere  the  ground  is 
honeycombed  with  wall  and  arch  and  pillar,  over  which 
thin  earth  rolls  in  graceful  undulation,  or  which  jut,  mere 
suggestions,  through  the  surface,  or  lie  in  indiscriminate 
confusion  around. 

South  of  the  Burnt  Column  are  seemingly  endless  rows 
of  high  brick  arches,  separated  by  walls  over  four  feet 
thick.  Little  emerges  from  the  rolling,  wavelike  surface 
of  the  ground ;  but  through  a  wide  extent,  wherever  the 
pick  goes  down,  like  arches  are  revealed.  The  Greeks 
call  these  remains  the  foundations  of  the  Prsetorium. 
Superstition  for  generations  has  left  the  spot  deserted,  and 
no  fabric  has  arisen  on  that  magnificent  site.  In  1871  the 
illustrious  statesman  Fuad  Pasha,  defying  popular  preju- 
dice, began  there  the  erection  of  a  palace;  but  at  the 
very  beginning  its  further  prosecution  was  prevented  by 
his  sudden  death. 


4U4  CONSTANTINOPLE 

In  another  part  of  the  city,  a  little  west  of  the  Atmeidan, 

are  two  great  masses  of  stone  and  mortar,  altogether  above 
ground,  separated  from  each  other  by  the  street.  They 
have  been  hacked  at  by  the  mason  and  builder  for  genera- 
ations;  but  so  much  is  left  that  the  larger  mass  is  one 
hundred  and  twenty-nine  feet  long  and  almost  fifty  wide. 
Though  supposition  is  valueless,  these  remains  are  com- 
monly considered  a  part  of  the  ornate  embolos  of  Domnos, 
the  most  splendid  which  adorned  the  city. 

Near  Ze'irek  Djami  is  a  strange  square  Byzantine  struc- 
ture, painted  bright  green,  —  a  single  chamber  in  perfect 
preservation,  covered  by  a  truncated  roof.  Though  the 
room  is  low-studded,  and  hardly  more  than  twenty  feet 
each  way.  the  walls  are  over  live  feet  thick.  Into  this 
small  apartment  nearly  a  hundred  children  swarm  daily, 
and  a  turbaned  teacher  in  flowing  robes  leads  the  chorus 
as  in  high-pitched  voices  they  repeat  passages  from  the 
Koran.  No  greater  contrast  can  one  conceive  than 
between  this  building's  past  and  present.  This  adapted 
school-house  is  an  ancient  heroon  or  tomb.  Over  the  floor, 
where  now  the  tumultuous  children  sit,  were  once  ranged 
the  coffins  of  the  dead. 

Ancient  inscriptions  abound :  disconnected  letters  on 
broken  blocks,  and  epitaphs  and  eulogies  in  entirety  on 
slabs  perfectly  preserved.  The  curious  traveller,  as  he 
threads  his  devious  way  across  Stamboul  or  along  the 
Bosphorus,  is  arrested  at  every  step  by  these  autographs  of 
the  past.  Some  are  almost  meaningless,  or  mean  but 
little ;  others  are  animate  with  the  tale  of  great  triumphs 
and  of  heroic  lives,  or  transmit  customs  which  are  now  but 
traditions.  The  few  in  Latin  indicate  how  ephemeral  and 
superficial  was  the  sway  of  the  Roman  tongue  in  the  Greek 
metropolis.      Some  remain  where  placed  at  first;  others. 


STILL   EXISTING   ANTIQUITIES  405 

ignored  and  disregarded,  look  out  from  blocks  built  as 
common  stones,  pell  niell,  bottom  upwards,  into  some 
house  or  wall.  The  most  ancient  and  most  interesting;  so 
far  known  is  found  upon  a  tower  of  the  Seraglio  wall 
nearly  opposite  the  Sublime  Porte.  Indistinct  and  incom- 
plete, its  archaic  letters  may  be  seen  upon  a  small  oblong 
stone  which  the  heedless  mason  has  mortared  in  nearly 
five  feet  above  the  ground.  The  inscription  is  a  notice 
from  some  scene  of  public  concourse  :  "  Of  veterans  and 
stadium  runners  the  place  begins."  So  the  unsightly  stone 
indicated  in  some  classic  edifice  the  positions  of  rank  and 
honor.  The  rustic  letters  have  no  meaning  now  for  the 
passer-by ;  once  the  heart  of  many  a  hero,  long  since 
pulseless  in  oblivion,  must  have  swelled  as  his  proud  eyes 
fell  upon  it,  and,  guided  by  its  direction,  he  passed  to  the 
exalted  seats  appropriate  to  his  achievements  and  renown. 


BYZANTINE   CHURCHES   CONVERTED   INTO  MOSQUES 

After  the  Conquest  not  only  did  the  palaces  pass  into 
the  hands  of  foreign  masters,  but  the  edifices,  hitherto 
Christian  churches,  were  transformed  into  the  sanctuaries 
of  another  creed.  Nowhere  had  Church  and  State  existed 
in  a  union  more  intimate  than  at  Constantinople  ;  nowhere 
had  they  been  more  mutually  sensitive  to  a  popular  breath 
or  a  national  convulsion.  So  it  seemed  not  only  mourn- 
ful coincidence  but  almost  inherent  necessity  that,  as  each 
conquered  palace  closed  upon  its  former  possessor,  and 
accepted  the  behests  of  an  Ottoman  lord,  so  the  church  or 
chapel  at  its  side  should  seal  up  its  history,  change  its 
name,  and  accept  the  ritual  and  the  priesthood  of  the 
Ottoman  faith.     Thus  the  ecclesia  became  the  mesdjid  or 


406  CONS  TANTINOPLE 

djami ;  its  baptismal  name  of  the  apostle  or  martyr,  whose 
protection  it  had  invoked  as  its  patron  saint,  was  super- 
seded by  the  harsher  appellation  of  some  pasha  or  effendi. 

The  altar  was  turn  down,  and  the  mihrab  took  its  place. 
The  mosaic  faces  of  the  saints  were  covered  over,  the 
arms  of  the  carved  crosses  stricken  off,  and  the  walls 
made  bare  with  whitewash.  The  plainness  of  the  dead- 
ened surface  was  relieved  only  by  passages  from  the 
Koran,  and  names  of  the  Caliphs,  the  ornaments  of 
puritan  Islam.  The  Christian  pulpit  and  the  priestly 
throne  were  banished  by  the  steep,  austere  minber,  whence 
on  each  Friday,  with  drawn  sword,  the  imam  was  to  offer 
his  noonday  supplication.  All  that  conquest  could  do  was 
done  to  efface  every  association  of  Christ  and  the  old,  and 
to  thrust  into  prominence  every  external  suggestion  of  the 
Prophet  and  the  new,  —  in  a  word,  to  utterly  transform 
the  Christian  church  into  a  Moslem  mosque. 

But  while  the  old  roof  stretched  above,  and  the  old 
walls  rose  skyward  around,  two  things  remained  which 
malignant  fanaticism  could  not  destroy:  these  were  the 
church's  form  —  basilica  or  Byzantine  cross,  ever  mutely 
eloquent  of  its  early  consecration  —  and  the  church's  his- 
tory, written  by  human  pens  and  traced  on  human  hearts, 
imperishable,  though  from  the  dishonored  aisles  the  chant 
of  the  choir  and  the  accents  of  the  priest  had  died  forever 
away.  Many  of  those  sacred  piles  have  gone  the  way  of 
man  and  of  all  man's  creation,  and.  worn  out  by  natural 
decay,  have  fallen  in  the  dust.  Others,  forsaken  ruins, 
are  at  best  despoiled  skeletons  ;  and  others  still,  to-day  un- 
shaken and  strong,  have  survived  the  centuries,  significant 
of  that  Christianity  to  winch  their  walls  resounded,  and 
which  outlives  time. 

Those   churches,  now  mosques,  come   down   to  us   hal- 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  407 

lowed  by  the  memory  of  an  unutterable  misfortune,  and  1  >y 
their  earlier  history  of  faith  and  prayer.  Yet  the  interest 
that  enwraps  them  is  not  only  religions  and  historic.  No- 
where else,  not  even  at  Ravenna  or  Salonica  or  Mount 
Athos,  are  to  be  found  so  many  examples  as  to  form,  con- 
struction, and  ornamentation,  of  eveiw  phase  of  Byzantine 
architecture.  Here  are  represented  every  type  and  style 
of  dome  in  its  development  and  growth,  the  gradual  shap- 
ing of  the  apse,  the  varied  mural  decoration  significant  of 
the  age  that  inspired  each  artist's  hand,  and  the  capital 
and  column,  forever  modified  and  yet  always  essentially 
the  same.  One  traces  the  slow  unfolding  of  the  cylinder 
into  the  circular  maze  of  columns,  which  at  length  shrink 
to  four,  whereby  the  farther  spaces  are  drawn  out  into 
Architecture's  fairest  triumph,  —  the  Byzantine  cross. 
Above  stretches  the  vaulted  dome,  chief  and  distinctive 
feature  of  Byzantine  architecture,  while  by  gradual  pro- 
gression semi-domes  and  lengthened  vaults  prolong  the 
form  and  heighten  the  effect.  The  peculiar  capitals,  al- 
most unknown  to  Rome  and  Greece ;  the  sheathings  of 
marble  plates  that  line  the  walls ;  and  that  mosaic  deco- 
ration which  Ghirlandajo  calls  tk  the  only  painting  for 
eternity,"  are  likewise  characteristic  of  this  famed  school 
of  art.  From  church  to  church  one  follows,  in  its  bulging 
growth,  the  truncated  period  of  each  column's  capital. 
until  it  flowers,  after  centuries  of  training,  witli  buds  and 
birds  and  mongrams.  So  from  sanctuary  to  sanctuary 
does  he  watch  the  plain  simplicity  of  early  days  slowly 
giving  way  to  a  luxurious  devotion,  that  hides  the  frame- 
work and  robes  the  inner  walls  with  dazzling  marbles  of 
fantastic  shapes  and  sizes,  and  that  often  seeks  its  criterion 
of  taste  in  the  prodigality  of  cost.  The  mosaics  in  their 
stony  beauty,  and   glassy,   golden  glitter,  are   harder    to 


408  CONSTANTINOPLE 

trace.  Not  that  the  tiny  cubes  have  fallen,  or  their  colors 
faded,  but  that  the  ascetic  sentiment  of  the  Ottoman  has 
sought  to  hide  them  from  the  scandalized  eye  of  his  co-re- 
ligionists. Scrupulously  faithful  to  the  letter  of  the  sec- 
ond commandment,  the  Moslem  looks  with  horror  on  any 
graven  image,  or  any  likeness  of  anything  that  is  in  the 
heaven  above  or  in  the  earth  beneath  or  in  the  water 
under  the  earth.  So  the  thick  whitewash  or  the  closely 
adhering  curtain  veils  the  records  in  mosaic  of  the 
Saviour's  earthly  mission,  and  the  pictures  of  the  lives 
and  deeds  of  the  Virgin,  saints,  and  martyrs,  which  were 
sermons  to  the  Byzantine,  and  on  which  he  gazed  with 
reverence  and  awe.  Nevertheless,  many  have  escaped 
the  Moslem's  solicitude,  and  on  their  exquisite  delinea- 
tions one  lingers  with  amazement  and  delight. 

Yet,  after  all,  these  Byzantine  churches  at  very  best  are 
but  shadows  of  what  they  were.  The  magnificence  has 
largely  disappeared;  the  brightness  and  splendor  have 
been  eclipsed  or  ended  by  conquest,  or  by  still  more  rapa- 
cious time.  Nor  is  it  strange.  Their  corner  stones  were 
laid  before  America  was  dreamed  of,  before  the  multi- 
tudinous crusading  hosts  poured  from  Europe  against  the 
sectaries  of  that  Arabian  Prophet,  who,  when  their  walls 
uprose,  was  still  unborn.  Yet  they  stand,  a  history  in 
stone  and  brick  and  mortar  of  the  outburst,  the  culmina- 
tion and  decline,  of  Bvzantine  architecture  and  art.  Higher 
and  more  fadeless  glory  still,  —  they  have  centered  the 
worship  and  echoed  the  anthems  of  early  Christianity. 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  4UU 


KUTCHOUK  AYA   SOPHIA,    THE   CHURCH   OF   SAINTS 
SEEGIUS   AND  BACCHUS 

Close  to  Justinian's  ruined  palace,  so  near  the  Marmora 
that  its  foundations  seem  almost  washed  by  transparent 
waves,  is  the  Mosque  of  Kutchouk  Ava  Sophia.  Anciently 
it  was  the  memorial  church  of  Saints  Serghis  and  Bacchus, 
and  the  neighboring  palace  was  eclipsed  in  gorgeousness 
by  this  sanctuary  reared  at  its  side.  Justinian  built  them 
both.  To  the  erection  of  the  church  he  consecrated  his 
entire  private  fortune  as  a  votive  offering  on  his  accession 
in  0_!7.  Yet  the  vast  wealth  possessed  by  him  as  consul 
did  not  suffice  for  its  completion,  and  its  accomplishment 
was  rendered  possible  only  by  the  ampler  resources  of  the 
Emperor. 

Sergius  and  Bacchus  had  been  high  officers  in  the  army 
of  Maxiniianus,  and  were  massacred  by  that  pagan  tyrant 
because  they  woidd  not  incline  their  heads  at  the  altars 
of  his  gods.  They  might  well  lie  regarded  as  the  patron 
saints  of  the  Justinian  dynasty.  When  Justinian,  then  a 
petty  officer,  and  Justin,  his  uncle,  afterwards  Emperor 
and  the  founder  of  their  House,  lay  in  prison,  condemned 
by  the  Emperor  Anastasius  to  speed}"  execution,  these 
saints  —  so  Anastasius  affirmed  —  appeared  to  him  in  a 
dream,  proved  his  prisoners'  innocence,  and  threatened 
him  with  the  wrath  of  God  unless  they  were  at  once 
restored  to  liberty  and  honor. 

The  edifice  presents  the  fully  developed  plan  of  an  early 
memorial  church.  Its  interior  constantly  calls  to  mind 
that  Italian  creation  of  Justinian,  San  Vitale  at  Ravenna. 
No  other  building  in  Constantinople  has  exerted  equal 
influence    in    subsequent    Byzantine    church    architecture. 


410  CONSTANTINOPLE 

The  towering  Sancta  Sophia,  acme  of  Byzantine  attain- 
ment, has  served  as  model  for  almost  every  Moslem 
mosque,  whatever  its  proportions,  which  has  been  erected 
since  the  Conquest.  Apparently  the  Christians  shrank 
from  imitation  of  Sancta  Sophia,  their  proudest  architec- 
tural achievement.  But  the  Church  of  Sergius  and  Bac- 
chus has  been  the  honored  pattern,  copied  with  greater  or 
less  fidelity  in  every  Orthodox  sanctuary  of  the  East. 

Sometimes  it  was  called  Convent  of  Hormisdas,  from 
the  Persian  exile  who  founded  the  neighboring  Palace  of 
Justinian,  and  bequeathed  it  his  name.  Built  against  it 
on  the  north  was  the  Church  of  Saints  Peter  and  Paul, 
so  close  that  a  common  entrance  served  them  both.  Of 
this  northern  edifice  absolutely  nothing  remains,  but  the 
Church  of  Sergius  and  Bacchus  is  practically  the  same  as 
when  first  erected.  Though  its  garnished  walls  have  been 
despoiled,  though  its  every  perishable  ornament  has  been 
destroyed,  though  fire  and  earthquake  have  many  times 
prostrated  all  the  edifices  in  its  vicinity,  yet  that  church 
stands  unshaken  in  its  original  strength,  and  still  robed  in 
much  of  its  original  beauty.  More  injurious  than  time  or 
natural  convulsion  is  the  adjacent  railway  track,  whence 
the  thundering  train,  as  it  rushes  by,  jars  the  venerable 
edifice,  and  makes  it  vibrate  to  its  base. 

Its  lengthy  history  has  been  neither  startling  nor  un- 
usually eventful.  Here  Pope  Vigilius,  having  excommu- 
nicated the  Patriarch  Menas,  sought  refuge  from  the 
resentment  of  Justinian.  In  the  fierce  fight  of  the  eighth 
and  ninth  centuries,  it  supported  the  iconoclastic  cause, 
and  its  most  distinguished  abbot  is  better  known  as  the 
iconoclastic  Patriarch  John  VII.  The  legates  of  the  Pope, 
and  the  Pope  himself  when  in  Constantinople,  officiated  at 
its  altar.     On  the  Tuesday  of  Easter  week  the  Emperor 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  411 

and  court  here  offered  their  formal  worship,  and  the  sov- 
ereign himself  assisted  in  the  liturgy.  Injured  during  the 
Latin  occupation,  it  was  cleansed  and  repaired  by  Michael 
VIII.  Shortly  after  the  Ottoman  Conquest  it  was  made 
a  mosque  by  Houssem  Agha,  then  favorite  of  Bayezid  II, 
but  soon  to  learn  in  terrible  experience  how  precarious  is 
a  despot's  favor.  His  headless  body  fills  a  neglected 
grave  outside  the  mosque.  Within  these  walls  were 
packed  from  1877  to  1879  a  horde  of  Moslem  refugees, 
who  fled  hither  from  Bulgaria  during  the  Russo-Turkish 
War.  The  well  on  the  right  hand  of  the  entrance,  re- 
vered by  the  Byzantines  as  a  holy  fountain,  received  all 
the  filth  of  the  crowded  inmates  during  two  pestiferous 
years. 

The  outline  of  the  ancient  atrium,  once  extending  be- 
fore the  church,  can  still  be  traced  in  the  oblong  court  in 
front.  This  is  now  shaded  by  majestic  trees,  and  lined 
on  three  sides  by  Mussulman  cloisters.  A  shabby  wooden 
portico  gives  access  to  the  narthex.  Thence  by  a  stone 
stairway  one  passes  to  the  gallery,  whence  alone  a  satis- 
factory view  of  the  whole  interior  can  be  obtained.  Stand- 
ing above  the  main  portal,  with  one's  face  directed  towards 
the  apse,  all  the  artistic  plan  — -  mazy  and  confused  when 
sought  for  from  below  —  slowly  becomes  definite  and 
distinct. 

The  edifice  is  an  octagon  inscribed  in  a  square.  Eight 
piers,  over  thirty  feet  in  circumference,  subtend  eight 
great  arches,  which  furnish  direct  support  to  the  dome, 
seventy  feet  above  the  floor.  The  dome  is  not  a  portion 
of  a  sphere,  but  rises  from  the  octagonal  perimeter  of  its 
base  in  sixteen  longitudinal  sections.  Through  half  of 
these  the  light  pours  in  by  means  of  deep-set  vaulted  win- 
dows.   Towards  the  apse  the  dome  is  prolonged  in  a  cyliu- 


412 


COXS  TAXT/XOPLE 


Columns    axd    Gallery   of 
Kutchouk  Aya  Sophia 


clrical  vault.  Pillars,  two  by  two.  rise  from  between  the 
piers,  and  uphold  the  gallery,  which  is  continuous  save 
towards  the  apse.  Over  on  the  southern  side,  between  two 
smaller  columns,  was  the   imperial   entrance.     Above  are 

the  clear-cut  monograms 
of  Justinian  and  Theodora, 
and  empty  nail-holes  show 
where  formerly  fitted  the 
casements  of  the  imperial 
doors.  The  entablature 
above  the  columns  is  wide 
and  elegantly  wrought. 
The  paint,  daubed  on  in 
thick  profusion  by  the 
Ottomans,  has  been  mel- 
lowed by  time,  and  has 
the    effect    of    a    golden    tint. 

On  the  frieze  is  a  Greek  poetical  inscription,  whose 
broad  and  sharply  protruding  characters  almost  surround 
the  church.  A  few  letters  arc  hidden  by  the  modern 
Moslem  pulpit,  and  a  final  sigma  is  wanting  at  the  left 
of  the  apse.  Every  other  character  is  in  place,  unbroken 
and  unmarred,  legible  as  when  cut,  perhaps  beneath  the 
eye  of  Justinian,  thirteen  hundred  and  sixty-nine  years 
ago.  Vine  leaves  and  clusters  of  grapes  serve  as  punctu- 
ation points  between  the  lines,  and  refer  to  the  convivial 
deity  Bacchus,  whose  name  is  the  homonym  of  the  mar- 
tyred saint.  Justinian  himself,  doubtless,  composed  the 
inscription.  So  characteristic  is  its  style,  that  it  seems 
not  so  much  a  sculptor's  work  in  marble  as  an  audible 
utterance  from  the  Emperor's  lips.  "Other  kings  have 
honored  dead  heroes  whose  achievement  was  small :  but 
our  sceptre-bearing  Justinian,   inspired  by  piety,  glorifies 


STILL  EXISTING  ANTIQUITIES  413 

with  a  magnificent  church  Sergius,  the  servant  of  Omnipo- 
tent Christ ;  him  neither  the  kindling  breath  of  fire,  nor 
the  sword,  nor  any  other  sort  of  torture  shook:  for  the 
divine  Christ  he  endured,  and,  though  slain,  he  gained  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  by  his  blood.  Forever  may  he  hold  in 
his  keeping  the  reign  of  the  vigilant  king,  and  augment 
the  power  of  Theodora,  the  divinely  crowned ;  of  her, 
whose  mind  is  filled  with  piety,  and  whose  labor  and  con- 
stant exertions  are  directed  to  the  diffusion  of  temporal 
blessings." 

The  thirty-four  columns  of  the  gallery  and  ground  floor 
are  of  the  richest  and  showiest  marble.  They  stand  every- 
where, two  arranged  together,  in  perfect  symmetry.  On 
them  repose  elaborate  Byzantine  capitals,  unique  in  design, 
and  of  exceeding  delicacy  and  beauty. 

One  seeks  the  old-time  opulence  of  mosaics  in  vain. 
The  hues  that  now  robe  the  walls  are  subdued,  though 
lovely.  With  the  present  chastened  coloring  one  con- 
trasts in  fancy  the  dazzling  ancient  brilliancy  which  Pro- 
kopios  declares  "  surpassed  the  effulgence  of  the  sun." 
To-day  it  is  no  single  detail,  nor  even  the  main  architec- 
tural design  which  most  absorbs  the  gazer.  It  is  the  com- 
plete harmoniousness  of  the  whole.  Each  individual 
feature  is  subordinate  to  every  other.  Every  part,  though 
dimmed  and  faded,  still  combines  in  structural  harmony. 
It  is  a  poem  finished  in  marble  lines  which  has  survived 
the  centuries.  Its  graceful  form  lingers  upon  the  vision 
of  the  eye  just  as  music  fills  the  ear.  No  marvel  that  the 
Ottomans  regard  it  as  second  only  to  the  great  cathedral, 
and  bestow  upon  it  the  admiring  name  of  the  Little  Saint 
Sophia. 

END    OF    VOL    I. 


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